Pro Grow LED Run #1, Super Cali Haze, Onyx, Blackbriar, and Blue Diesel

thanks for dropping in man, feel free to post away suggestions at your liesure or pics of your ladies. I'll have pics up soon (today hopefully). I already had to trim the Sweet Carmel to make sure the colas have the room they need to do it to it.

moving along, about 2 weeks old as of these pictures. The sweet carmel has shown sex. Just fed with 1/2 normal dose of cal mag, 1/4 normal dose of Tiger Bloom, and the regular dose of Bush Dr.'s microbes. This is my first run with fox farms ocean forest soil. Feeding it what my buddy at the local hydro shop said should be about right for autos this age. Pro-Grow 180s have been switched from veg only spectrum to full illumination and will stay at full until the last two weeks of flowering. I'll turn on the spectra for the left side of the room in a couple days. Anyone using different feeding schedules/nutes with their autos feel free to chime in.

No rest for the wicked eh? LED seems to be doing a good job man lookn forward to seeing the sweet caramel and smurfberry, bet that together will make one mouth watering spliffage!

No rest indeed. My lights (except for the 90w ufo) have a three year warranty on them. I will be running them 23 hours a day for the next three years, and hopefully beyond, that is unless I decide to go back to growing photo periods which I probably won't.

On an interesting side note, I was screwing around on Ebay today. To re-iterate what I've posted earlier I am definitely not a fan of cheap 90w ufos from China and do not recommend anyone use them as primary lighting, that being said an absurd deal is an absurd deal - I found someone selling a lot of 3 and no one had hopped on the bidding train so I was able to pick up 3 (brand unkown but in "almost new condition" according to the listing) 1w diode 90w ufos for 120 bucks shipped! Assuming this guy is a legit wholesaler and the units arrive functional that was too good to pass up. If they're bullshit, at least I'm covered by Ebay total buyer protection. I know this journal contains a lot of posts about what I've found on Ebay and probably seems like an Ebay commercial at times, but in my experience Ebay is the tits for finding good deals if you do your research.

At any rate, when they arrive I'll make a judgement call - these could make decent side lighting, even if they only toss out 2-3k lumens in a close to correct spectrum, or if I deem them total crap I'll flip two of them on Ebay and easily get my $120 back and have a free cheapo 90w ufo to add into the mix for side lighting. Gotta figure someone will pick up a used 90w for at least 60 bones.

With 2-180 PGs, 1-250 PG, my shitty 90w UFO from LED wholesalers, and the 100w Spectra UFO from GLH I'm probably well set considering I never have more than 4 growing at any given time, but nothing exceeds like excess.

Speaking of the 4 I have going right now they are growing very rapidly, with the Smurfberry and Caramel definitely showing faster and more robust branching development than the MI-5 and Santa. I'll update with pics next Friday to show exactly what has gone on since the 12th. They've responded very well to the light feeding I gave them. My target end game for this run is no less than an oz per plant, hopefully close to 2 oz from the caramel and/or smurf. If I'm able to pull that I'll have something to throw at everyone on the led hate wagon and will have fully justified my investment in LEDS by equaling what I used to do with a shit ton of hps and cfl

Now thats a deal if it all goes well, I am intrigued by LED but the price usually put me off from what I heard but I am certainly intrigued at such prices, Ill be watching the grow but from what ive seen LED's looks good, Ive got to leave a bit imbetween my next grow so I think ill spy how yours goes before I buy one! This is turned out to be damn fine thread hoss!

like I said we'll have to see what they look like when they arrive. They could be total pieces of shit which a lot of generic 90w ufos are. Either way two of my buddies are going to check them when they arrive. If they like they'll each pick one up for $65 and I'll get a freebie. I honestly don't even know how many spectrums they carry, but 3 for $120 is crazy cheap. If I had to guess for that price they're either all blue, all red, or dual band and probably use automotive grade leds. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly suprised.

If you do wind up getting leds for your garden my advice would be to hunt for bargains on reliable brands Guru. Since mine is pretty much dailed in I just figured I'd make a quick buck by flipping some lights and possibly get something worth while for side lighting. Single watt diode 90w ufos will not deliver the goods as a primary light source. Anyone claiming they are equal to a 400w hid light should be cock smacked and is the reason people have a bad taste in their mouths when it comes to this tech. A good 90 to 100w ufo will cover at the most about a 2X2 foot core coverage area, not close to the outrageous claims most bs scamsters. LEDs are highly directional compared to HID and CFL. Don't get me wrong I love mine and wouldn't consider going back to hid. In terms of what you really need to replace hid/cfls I think even if I don't keep one of the three cheapos I snagged I've replaced my close to 1000w of hid and clf with somewhere in the nieghborhood of 600 watts of led (actual led power output not chipset capacity advertising) to do it effectively.

now things get interesting. Note this pictures were taken 7 days after the last pics. They've totally exploded with new growth. The only one that isn't up to snuff is the MI-5 sometimes you get get small auto phenos. Doesn't really matter cause they other ones look like they'll wind up 1 oz plus plants, especially the carmel which is the bushiest of the four. Smurfberry also looking great, and yes Virginia there is a Santa and she will be coming to my house early this year.

I'll take some better pictures with the leds turned off next week, can't really appreciate how healthy these are turning out with the martians landing in the background.

lookn g.oo.d!

on an interesting side note one of the 400w air cooled hps digital ballast and hood I sold my buddy when i upgrayeed to led lights has busted. It was less than a year old. Weak sauce GYO, weak sauce. Felt kinda bad about it but I only charged him 60 bones for it to begin with. The air cooled hood retails for almost that. At least it didn't burn his house down and I gave him one of my old 105w clfs to help make it right.

Sounds like a decent deal to me =P

In case you were curious the 3 90w ufos I got on ebay were legit. They are older dual band single watt diode models which are perfect for side lighting. Some wholesaler was having a bad day - I opened them up and they still had the original msrp tags on them listing $129.99 a piece, I got three of them shipped for $123. Two will be sold well below msrp to friends of mine giving me 10 bucks in my pocket and a free new side light. It is interesting to compare the spectrums employed on these older no name brand models to my other higher end panels and UFOs. The red and blue diodes, while similar to the Pro Grow and GLH diodes are not quite the same shade (or brand) leading me to believe they just threw in whatever was close to disco, labeled it red 660nm, blue 415nm and hoped for the best. In my research I found that 660nm diodes are far more expensive for some reason, but what the plants actually crave for flowering.

Anyway got a solid deal, if you can pick one up for $50 bucks or less do it any more than that is a rip IMO, but don't expect it to be more than an effective supplimental light. If I have the time I'll take some side by side comparision pictures this weekend when I update. It would also appear that these no names have a larger viewing degree on the diode lens (probably 120 degrees as opposed to the 90 degree - mostly used and 60 degree - sometime used, in higher end models). I guess the idea behind that is to spread it out as far as possible but actually doesn't benefit the plants as much since method basically spreads 1w diodes that don't pennetrate well further apart than a smaller degree angle.

Ah nice even for some side lighting and the fact it looks like there are aliens in your cupboard its a good deal especially for your m8s. I think I will invest in a one or two for my next grow after some works done on my house, itll be interesting to see your results. Good if you had kids, dont go in the secret cupboard with the glowing purple light thats where the bogey man lives.

that was part of the reason for switching to led. If I did happen to leave the extra bedroom unlocked and my 3 year old happened to get in there and touch a lit hid bulb that would have been seriously bad news. I'm pretty sure it would melt the skin off your hands.

Oh deffinately those things burn you before you even touch them!

Four weeks and one day as of these pics. They're all kicking ass except for the MI-5, which is unfortunate because I have grown many MI-5's the smoke is fantasticalicious. I managed to bleach the top of the Santa, had her about 4 inches from the top of the pro grow 250. I've moved it back to 6 inches, the bleaching stopped spreading. Just started adding Gravity from Humbolt nutes. Still running Tiger Bloom, Cal Mag, and Bush Dr Mircrobe brew. Using Bush Dr. at full strength and Cal Mag and Tiger at about 1/2 strength as I have found autos don't typically like full doses of nutes (the rec dosages are designed for photo period plants which are a totally different animal).

Plants are looking good hoss man, rooms looking creepy..lol also glad to see your N defficeincy is receding. Im sure MI5 will be fine its in safe hands! I eased up on the nutes as you said the plants are recovering so thanks for that dude got a quick question if you would oblige- Ive got a very irritating fan leaf on vertigo atm and if I removed her it would make some already decent size nugs very happy but she is very late in, thoughts?

watup hoss,
Are those pro-grows you bought, performing as you expected?
I see all is goign well still.... watching

Yes I am very happy with the Pro Grows. If I hadn't found the GLH 100w cheap I would have gotten another PG to round everything out but as is everything is fit for disco. This run is totally equivalent to similar grows I've had under over 1000w of HPS and CFLs and I'm currently only running 690w of electricity so my power bill is also thanking me. Temps in the room are also way easier to control. I'm running about 78 degrees F right now. While my first run was kinda screwed as can be expected when experimenting with new lights this one is legit. I was highly skeptical about leds going into this but figured what the hell I might as well give it a run and if they had failed I could always sell and get my hps back which I will not be doing. I can in good conscience rec that anyone looking to switch to led can buy high end panels from Hydroponics hut and look to use 2/3 the power they had with hps and cfl and get totally equal results.

Guru - I trim my fan leaves all the way up until the end to make sure colas are getting their due. Some disagree with this strategy and to each his own, but I have found that as long as the bud site attached to the fan leaf in question is growing steadily on its own (sprouting out and forming its own leaves) I can trim it and that trimming will benefit overall yield.

Thanks again Hoss, Its not even that healthy a looking fan leave but no the buds have their own leaves so I shall snip! Thanks again dude I appreciate all the help so far

I will no longer be using Gravity from Humbolt's Own Nutrients. Glad I only used it twice on this run so far. I will now have to flush. For an explanation see below ...

https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/459639-warning-carcinogens-found-humboldt-countys.html

Was given a 4 oz. sample bottle at my local hydro shop. It was dumped down the toilet this morning.