Stinkbud inspired Aero/NFT with LEDGirl Hydro-grow LED's MEDICAL PROP 215

I'm a California Prop 215 Cannabis patient and caregiver. I do not support the recreational use of cannabis.

I bought four 126W LED lights from LEDGirl a couple months ago when her thread was heating up here. She gave me a considerable discount if I agreed to post a journal after week four of flowering. So I'm getting it started now a little late, but I've been really busy lately, so here it is finally.

I'm running three aero/nft units with four plant sites each. These were inspired by the Stinkbud "Harvest a Pound Every Three Weeks" thread, with some modifications to make it fit nicely in my spare bathtub. I'm running the Botanicare line as recommended by stink in his system, keeping ph at 5.8 and ppm between 1600-2000 depending on strain.

I built a cab that rests on the tub rails, sealed it, mylar, exhaust, and a hydrogen miniGen co2 generator. Temps are between 65-85, 90 at the top of the canopy. Humidity stayed between 40 and 50% until a couple weeks ago, and it was getting into the 60% range, so I have exhaust running all the time to keep it under 50%. I just added the third rack five days ago, and the older two racks just finished week six. They are strawberry couch and soma sour diesel. There's also one cheese plant in there but it sucks and I'll never grow it again.

The older plants vegged for 4 weeks under a 2ft 4 bulb HO T5 and the younger plants vegged 18 days under that same light. I'd love to be vegging under the LED also to do a full LED experiment, but I don't have the money right now to buy one and the T5's work great.

I had two incidents where I forget to turn my pumps back on and the girls went without water for 12 hours, they bounced back quick but I'm sure it was stressful. Also, last week when I got home from a road trip my exhaust fan had not been keeping up with humidity and I had a pretty nasty powdery mildew problem in my lower branches. I dealt with that with a milk spray and cut a bunch out. I still need to add a dehumidifier, but in the mean time my co2 hasn't been running the last couple weeks because exhaust is on constantly. Since I just added co2 in the middle of the grow, and now it's not working, I'd say these first two racks can't really be considered to have been grown with supplemental co2. I had a small calcium deficiency early on, but dealt with it when I put them on full bloom nutes in week three.

These are all the problems I've had to give you a good idea of how the grow is going. I'm in no way a pro, so these results should be what you can expect from someone with a couple soil grows under his belt doing his first aero and LED experiment

Pictures attached are from veg to the end of week 6. All plants were started from clones.

Okay, apparently I can't upload photos right now due to system maintenance, so I'll try to add them later.
 
Okay, so apparently most of my pictures from early on in the grow are too big but the early pics can be seen at my other grow journal here. I'll post the more current pics that are smaller in size. I don't know how to resize the others.
 

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TCurtiss

Well-Known Member
The lights were $400 a piece, but I only paid for three of the four. Kind of pricey to light such a small space, but they will pay for themselves in energy savings and no bulb replacement.
That's bad ass mannn

They look great!!!!!!!!!

I am 2 weeks behind you

Sorry to thread jack

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/239311-growing-whirlpool-fridge.html

I am glad to see more people using these things, they work, oh yes they work

No need for all sorts of fans for your lights, they are built in

And the energy saving, that speaks for itself

Wait a year or 2 and see what we have, it's going to be great

I love technology

Keep up the great work

T :bigjoint:
 

LEDGirl

Active Member
Your Strawberry Cough plants are looking really nice. So how many plants do you have under each light currently in the two larger racks? And how tall are the plants approximately? Also, which line of Botanicare nutes are you running? Can't wait to see what weeks 8 and 9 have in store. They should bulk up very nicely :)
 
Yeah man, they really do work well. Are you using the Hydro Grow or another brand LED? Sorry, I skimmed your journal but saw a couple different lights. Growing in a whirlpool is awesome, there are free refrigerators everywhere.
 

TCurtiss

Well-Known Member
Yeah man, they really do work well. Are you using the Hydro Grow or another brand LED? Sorry, I skimmed your journal but saw a couple different lights. Growing in a whirlpool is awesome, there are free refrigerators everywhere.
I am using a light from pro source, I was following another thread and it looked like it was a good product and a 90 day return policy
which was the deal maker for me

It looks like your lights are working very well, and yes on craigslist there are a bunch of free grow cabinets out there, you just need to pick and clean it up

Have a great weekend

T:weed:
 
I have three plants in one rack and four in the other. There are three lights covering both larger racks. I have the fourth light dropped low over the newest rack. They are about 3.5-4 ft. I'm using the bontanicare pro bloom, sweet berry, cal-mag, and liquid karma. I'm only taking the straw cough out 8 weeks, the diesel will go nine. The SC has a habit of spitting out male branches if you let it go too long.
 

LEDGirl

Active Member
Glad to know I'm not the only one who experiences that with Strawberry. That's why I took my last 2 out at 8.5 weeks. I tend to spray Reverse every 2-3 weeks during bloom as a good insurance policy (plus the plants love it), but when SC shows the banana leaves within 2 weeks of being finished, that's when she's done!.
 

grow4ever

Member
Glad to know I'm not the only one who experiences that with Strawberry. That's why I took my last 2 out at 8.5 weeks. I tend to spray Reverse every 2-3 weeks during bloom as a good insurance policy (plus the plants love it), but when SC shows the banana leaves within 2 weeks of being finished, that's when she's done!.
Cammie told me where to find your journal. Good luck and thanks for taking the time to provide important info:lol:
 
Any Updates?
Here's some pics from a couple days ago. I just chopped my strawberry down tonight and there are some pics of a couple of the buds pre-trimmed also. I think it's safe to say these LED's grow healthy, super dank medicine. I won't be using my extended return policy, that's for sure. I hadn't really had the chance to see the plants in any light other than the LED, and after cutting them down I can't believe how good they look - I'm just really impressed. The lower branches had the usual small popcorn, but they were dense. I hardly threw anything in the hash box, really just trim. Thanks for all the info and the hookup on the lights, I'll continue to spread the word as best I can.
 

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LEDGirl

Active Member
Congrats on your first run through with our LED's! Your buds look very nice, and no doubt in the future you will likely get better and better yields. Now that you've also got your CO2 equipment, I have no doubts that your next batch will be even better! If you have the chance to send me a "website friendly" review, I'd love to hear from ya through PM ;) Keep up the good work, and I appreciate you taking the time to post your progress and results.
 
Ended up being 71g off of the two big strawberries and only 9g from my one lame little dwarfed Strawberry. The little diesel plant that was mixed in also only yielded like 5 grams. Realistically, I'd say the big healthy plants each yielded a little over an ounce a piece in a 36"x18" space with the two little dwarfs barely yielding anything. The quality is better than anything I've grown before though, and I'm sure I'm going to do much better on my next cycle. The rack of two diesel and 1 cheese came down two days ago, and the diesel is some of the best looking, smelling bud I've ever seen. NYC is my favorite, but I'm growing sour, and the diesel that came down a week ago unfinished was some of the best tasting, smoothest smoke anywhere. I can't believe how good the diesel turned out. I kept the two diesel plants separate in my dryer this round so that I'll know exactly how much each yields. The wet yeild seems bigger than the SC, guess we'll know in another 4 days. The cheese was so weak, I'll be lucky to get a quarter out of that thing. The rack I have in flower now is 4 big, healthy strawberries at day 23. I'll have a new rack going in tomorrow with 4 more SC's, and then I'm probably gonna grow diesel exclusively for 3-4 cycles because I love it and really want to dial it in. Don't have any pics at the moment cuz I've been super busy, but I'll make it a point to get some dry pics up in the next few days.
 
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