Red Belly's GLH Spectra LED RDWC - Round 1

I have learned a lot from lurking this forum and thought I would give back to the community by letting you into my garden.

The Setup:

• Sealed environment with CO2 and A/C
• TWO "budslinger" RDWC systems with FOUR 5-gallon bucket each. 80L in each system.
• 8" netpots with diatomite - silica rock media
• Grow LED Hydro 4x290W Spetcras (I have 8x180 2011 Spectras v2-"white" on the way as replacements)
• Alita AL-60 providing the air support

The Plants:

• 4X Dr. Greenthumb Endless Sky in the system on the left
• 4X Dr. Greenthumb G-13 in the system on the right
• I grew out 4 seeds, and have 2 plants from each mother in flower so we will be monitoring to select 2 mothers, one from each strain
• Plants were vegged for 29 days in veg room, topped and LSTed during veg

The Food:

• Canna Aqua Vega/Flores
• Canna Boost (foliar to start and then add to rez when buds form)
• Canna PK 13/14
• "Heisenberg"-style microbe tea

Environement:

• I have two 10" in-wall fans exchaning the air between veg and flower rooms, allowing me one set of equipment to manage the climate
• Propane burner CO2 maintaining 900-1100PPM
• A/C
• 60-pint dehumidifier
• 8" carbon scrubber
• 6" exhaust venting on a timer at night time start
• Oscillating fans

This is my first time with this RDWC system AND these two strains AND LED lighting, so expect much learning to come from this grow.

So here we go:

Day 2 of 12/12


Endless Sky


G-13


Day 17 of 12/12


Endless Sky


G-13


The flower development is pretty slow at this point. I only saw first signs of flower forming on ES on Day 11 of 12/12 and G-13 on Day 16.

A bit hard to see, but here are a couple of close ups on Day 17 of 12/12.

Endless Sky


G-13

How high up are each of those glh panels? And what size grow room is that?

nice man, how much you spend on each panel?

puffenuff said:

How high up are each of those glh panels? And what size grow room is that?

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I have them running at 25", give or take. If you see the pink rope hanging from the lights, that is the 25" mark. The room is a 10x13", but each system is about 4x6', which means I am asking each 290W to cover a 3x4' area. Plants are smaller than I planned for, but I have 8x180W Spectras on the way so the coverage and area will change.

mattman said:

nice man, how much you spend on each panel?

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thanks, mattman! You can find the prices for the panels on growledhydro site.

I like your room, very clean and organized. But I'm not following your math...been a while since geometry, but wouldn't a 4 x 6 space divided by 2 (for each 290) be a 2 x 3 space for each 290?

puffenuff said:

I like your room, very clean and organized. But I'm not following your math...been a while since geometry, but wouldn't a 4 x 6 space divided by 2 (for each 290) be a 2 x 3 space for each 290?

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Thanks, puff. Hope to have you on board for this run. Your geometry is a bit rusty though, hehe. If you split up a 4x6 area in two equal parts, you will be left with two 4x3' areas or two 2x6' areas depending which way you split. I did draw up plans on paper before doing anything, so that certainly helped. There's a lot of firsts for me in this grow, so this run will help me dial it in and make adjustments for the next ones.

Fuck, way to take me back to jr. high haha youre absolutely right. My bad! So you dont feel like a glh 290 is adequate enough for 2 plants in a 3 x 4 space? Is that the reason for making the switch to 8 180s?

To be honest, I can't say for sure whether one 290W can do a 3x4 with two plants or not. I've only run them up until this point, which isn't very far at all as you can see. I should say that these plants were NOT vegged in this system. Moreover, I didn't have the entire planned 3x4 area filled with plants, so I can't say.

When I heard that Mike had new v2 Spectras released, I made a deal with him to replace for them. Ultimately, I was deciding between 4x290W vs 8x180 and went with the 180s for greater flexibility, coverage and almost 300W more power overall. And each plant will now be directly under its own light. They will hopefully be here next week, so I'll post some pics and impressions when I get it setup.

Sounds good to me! I'm subb'd for this journey. I've got a small led setup I've been running with for a few cycles now. Only running a 180w in a 2x3 closet but I love the results.

brotha man thhat is quite the setup i am impressed. im about to get a similar setup goin myself power to ya bro im subbed for sure. cheers

Thanks, curly! Good to have you on board.

Did a weekly rez change yesterday.

ES got Canna Aqua Flores + bennie tea - 0.6EC
G-13 got Canna Aqua Flores + bennie tea - 0.8EC

Im pretty sure the G-13 can handle more, but I'm taking it easy on the nutes. At the end of the week the EC levels stay the same as I set them in the beginning, so I figure neither one is asking for more? I don't know how to tell by the plants themselves whether they want more nutes, so I thought that I would go by the rez EC at end week, but it just doesn't move. I can certainly tell by the plants when they have too much though...

In each system they drink about 15L a week or a gallon per plant/per week, an inch drop in the water level, so I haven't been topping off during the week so far. I expected heavier drinking to be honest.

Cannazym. I've been using Cannazym up until this rez change, but I have cut it since I figured the bennies (Aquashield + Subculture B + Subculture M + molasses brewed 48 hours) would be producing the enzymes anyway. Trying to simplify and save costs. Thoughts?

Canna Boost. Canna recommends using Boost throughout flowering, but this stuff is EXPENSIVE! At Canna dosages it would cost me like $400 just in Boost alone for a single run both systems. That is ridiculous. I looked around and everybody seems to like this product, but at these prices I can't justify it. So far I've been foliar feeding the Boost every two days at 2ml/L. Is it doing anything? - no idea! I will probably starting adding it to the rez as the buds start shaping up a bit. Experience and thoughts on this?

I will be posting pics on a weekly basis, so look for pic updates in around 4 days.

Let's have a look at the stretch report. We are on Day 23 of 12/12, so I figure we are near their final height. Keep in mind, these where topped and LSTed during their 29 day veg.
Since we have two plants from each mother, we may have 2 different phenotypes of Endless Sky and G-13 each. We will call them A and B. The first number is the height at start of flowering and the second is the height today, 23 days later.

ESA 2: 10.5"-18" 71% stretch
ESA 3: 12"-19" 58%
ESB 2: 10.25"-18.5" 80%
ESB 3: 12.5"-19.5" -56%
G13A 2: 11"-23" 109%
G13A 3: 8.75" - 20.25" 131%
G13B 2: 10"-17" 70%
G13B 3: 9.5"- 17.25" 82%

ESA average stretch: 64.5% ESB average stretch: 68% - A wash in my book.
G-13A average stretch: 120% G-13B average stretch: 76% - Looks like pheno A is more of a stretcher than B. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? We'll find out later, I guess...

Can I tell I like numbers? Pics tomorrow!

sweet man very few people bother to put in dgtails like this. but for breeding and really just in general this is a key way to keep a journal. cheers buddy keep up the good work.

I feel you on the boost price, although I feel like it does a really great job. I'm looking for alternatives as well and narrowed it down to either bud-xl and top shooter from h&g, atami bloombastic, or kool bloom + snowstorm ultra + gravity...but I'm not sure yet if those will be cheaper solutions so I need to check the feed charts before I decide.

I think the bags should be ok to replace the cannazym, or at least considetably reduce your dosage of it. I am going to keep running the cannazym with the rhizotonic because I'm very happy with my root structure and health.

Journal is coming along nicely, keep it up!

puffenuff said:

I feel you on the boost price, although I feel like it does a really great job. I'm looking for alternatives as well and narrowed it down to either bud-xl and top shooter from h&g, atami bloombastic, or kool bloom + snowstorm ultra + gravity...but I'm not sure yet if those will be cheaper solutions so I need to check the feed charts before I decide.

I think the bags should be ok to replace the cannazym, or at least considetably reduce your dosage of it. I am going to keep running the cannazym with the rhizotonic because I'm very happy with my root structure and health.

Journal is coming along nicely, keep it up!

Click to expand...

Cool, keep me in the loop on finding a cheaper Boost alternative. I guess you use Canna Aqua as well? I ran the Vega for the first two weeks of flower, feeding pretty lightly. What's you feeding program/experience with Canna?

And now for the weekly photo update on Day 24 of 12/12


Endless Sky


G-13


The top view of each plant:
ESA2


ESA3


Looks like the ESBs are showing some kind of deficiency in a few top leaves closest to the light. The ESAs are not showing this... One more side note for the pheno selection...

ESB2


ESB3


G13A2


G13A3


G13B2


G13B3


A couple of close ups to show the flower development
ES



G13



Now granted I have not grown out these strains before, nor flowered anything under LEDs before, but I can't help but feel I am 7-14 days behind on flower development. Am I feeding too light, plants not loving the lights, light distance not optimal (22-25")or just being impatient?

Thoughts????

redbelly80 said:

Cool, keep me in the loop on finding a cheaper Boost alternative. I guess you use Canna Aqua as well? I ran the Vega for the first two weeks of flower, feeding pretty lightly. What's you feeding program/experience with Canna?

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I actually run the coco base nutes with rhizo and cannazym. start off with low base nutes, 3-4 ml per gallon, high rhizo maybe 6ml per gallon for first week or so or after transplanting and about 6-8 ml of cannazym. I work my way up in base nutes until I hit about 10 ml per gal in bloom, but it really depends on how the strains respond, might need slightly lower doses. Then in flower I hit them with boost after first flower signs show at about 10 ml per gal. I wait until about 4 weeks out from harvest and hit them once or twice during that week with 3-5 ml of pk13/14. Then back to just boost until I start to flush about 5 days out from chop time. This method has brought me excellent results, I've been happy so far with this setup, but just looking to try different things.

u should be like 6-8 inches from ur tops boss maybe closer...25inches is way to far away..IMO...But great set-up