Took the plunge. LED for noobs first grow.

I'm new to growing. Just trying things out for now. I started out with a small T5 fixture and a few northern light seeds. I decided to try DWC hydroponics. Then I decided I needed a tent. Then a fan and filter. Then I couldn't stand it, I had to try an LED light. So after about a month of changing things this is where I am now. The plants have survived me and seem to be fairly healthy. I've had a few set backs, but all in all this is really not that hard.

I don't have time to do a full journal but I know there is a lot of interest in LED lighting and I will try to update when I can.

The basics:
Northern Light plants - 4 in all using 5 gallon DWC for each plant.
Nutes - keeping it simple with 3 part GH and a little H2O2.
Tent is 3'x4'.
Light is G8LED 450 watt panel currently mounted 30" from top of plants.

My plan is to flower soon and keep things simple so that I can continue to learn. I want to do a scrog but since I don't know sex of plants I thought I would try my hand at cloning just before I go to flower. I will mark them so I know which ones to dump afterwards. I plan to veg the clones under T5 light while I flower these and then I will have females for doing a scrog.

Nice man, I have an LED too, The advanced DS100. I will be checkin in here frequently!

Happy Smokin' man

looks really good! im planning on jumping into LED and i think this just reassured! haha!

-Trippy

Hey for being new to growing and starting with DWC it looks killer. Seems like you did your research. Congratulations!

Thanks guys. I found RIU to be very helpful in getting started. Most any issues that I have encountered were covered somewhere on RIU. Hopefully someday I can return the favor and offer some help.

These guys are great on here, I agree. If you take a look at Grasscity (no offense anyone...) there are a bunch of unanswered posts and when they are answered it is just a bunch of troll comments as well as hateful comments. Here everyone wants to share knowledge and take in new ideas.

Happy Smoking

Well, I changed my mind and decided to go ahead with a scrog on this grow. Keeping my fingers crossed for females. I already see the plants taking to the screen. They are almost like children. If you tell them they can't do something they are going to do everything to show you they will do what they want! Nice.....

Growz4fun said:

Well, I changed my mind and decided to go ahead with a scrog on this grow. Keeping my fingers crossed for females. I already see the plants taking to the screen. They are almost like children. If you tell them they can't do something they are going to do everything to show you they will do what they want! Nice.....


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Lol, I like your analogy. It looks good!

Had to go out of town for three days and came home to a jungle. Time to go to flower. No time for clones right now. I will have to do that later. Two plants are showing female signs. Yipee!!! Thought I would take a couple of pictures before I rearrange the tops through the screen. The picture in the previous post was taken on 12/9. The ones here were shot 4 days later on 12/13. The screen hasn't been moved. The light seems to be working pretty well to me. I have nothing to compare it with because I am new to this, but I can honestly say that I have no reason to want the plants to grow any faster. I am using a fan/filter in my tent, but it is for odor control. I have no heat build up whatsoever.



PS - I hope Santa will bring me a decent camera for Christmas. Sorry the pictures aren't better.

For future scrogs, make individual screens

Growz4fun said:

Well, I changed my mind and decided to go ahead with a scrog on this grow. Keeping my fingers crossed for females. I already see the plants taking to the screen. They are almost like children. If you tell them they can't do something they are going to do everything to show you they will do what they want! Nice.....


View attachment 2923581

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The 5 week old clones pictured below were taken with small bud clusters in place. Once they rooted, I pinched the buds. 3/4 bifurcated, which is just fine.

FYI I posted the cube pic as it can be used to tie stems down. See my thread for where to buy

Oops, forgot to mention they are growing under 2 WHITE UFO 90 leds, one 5000K (NW) + one 3000K (WW) . The fixture cutting the pic has 2 @16w WW led tubes for some added WW directly over the 2 small cones, to help them stretch

Growz4fun said:

Had to go out of town for three days and came home to a jungle. Time to go to flower. No time for clones right now. I will have to do that later. Two plants are showing female signs. Yipee!!! Thought I would take a couple of pictures before I rearrange the tops through the screen. The picture in the previous post was taken on 12/9. The ones here were shot 4 days later on 12/13. The screen hasn't been moved. The light seems to be working pretty well to me. I have nothing to compare it with because I am new to this, but I can honestly say that I have no reason to want the plants to grow any faster. I am using a fan/filter in my tent, but it is for odor control. I have no heat build up whatsoever.

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PS - I hope Santa will bring me a decent camera for Christmas. Sorry the pictures aren't better.

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PetFlora said:

For future scrogs, make individual screens

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Makes for a lot more work, what are the benefits?

PetFlora said:

The 5 week old clones pictured below were taken with small bud clusters in place. Once they rooted, I pinched the buds. 3/4 bifurcated, which is just fine. FYI I posted the cube pic as it can be used to tie stems down. See my thread for where to buy Oops, forgot to mention they are growing under 2 WHITE UFO 90 leds, one 5000K (NW) + one 3000K (WW) . The fixture cutting the pic has 2 @16w WW led tubes for some added WW directly over the 2 small cones, to help them stretch View attachment 2928315View attachment 2928316

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Looks like you're using some pretty large stones for media. Almost the size of a small potato. Has that worked out well in the past?

PetFlora said:

For future scrogs, make individual screens

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Thanks for the advice, but this is working fine for me. I have read a lot of info on here before I started this. That is one of the problems. There are literally thousands of opinions on everything. I am finding some that work for me and some don't. I have come to the conclusion that I am going to just try things for myself and see what works for me. I will adapt things as I go but so far so good. Thanks again and happy smoking...

Red1966 said:

Makes for a lot more work, what are the benefits?

Click to expand...

Main benefit would be if I need to change the resevoir. I'm not having any issues, so I am doing rez changes without changing the bucket. I'm doing this for fun, so I don't mind the risk of losing a plant to root rot. If I can make this work without having to change the bucket it makes the whole process a lot simpler. I have the buckets elevated off of the floor so that I can drain them. I have a pump with a hose that fits inside of the drain line on the bucket for refilling. Keeps things very simple. But what do I know. Before anybody tells me this won't work, please let me find out for myself. No offense. Part of the fun to me is making my own decisions and learning from my own mistakes.

No ornamental stones are potato size, maybe a few of the lava rock, but very small potatoes

Red1966 said:

Looks like you're using some pretty large stones for media. Almost the size of a small potato. Has that worked out well in the past?

Click to expand...

I did manage to take a clone from each plant. If these survive I don't think I will need any more. I didn't have time to baby them. No misting and no cover. I just took clippings, put them in rockwool that is damp. They are in 2" net pots in a small resevoir with one cfl. They seem to be doing fine. Time will tell. I am leaving a little growth under the screen of the scrog for now in case I need more clones.

PetFlora said:

The 5 week old clones pictured below were taken with small bud clusters in place. Once they rooted, I pinched the buds. 3/4 bifurcated, which is just fine.

FYI I posted the cube pic as it can be used to tie stems down. See my thread for where to buy

Oops, forgot to mention they are growing under 2 WHITE UFO 90 leds, one 5000K (NW) + one 3000K (WW) . The fixture cutting the pic has 2 @16w WW led tubes for some added WW directly over the 2 small cones, to help them stretch

View attachment 2928315View attachment 2928316

Click to expand...

Had to go out of town again. This job thing is getting in the way of my hobbies. Sorry again for the bad pictures. I will have a new camera soon. I took this photo 5 minutes before the light came back on this morning.



After a little work I was able to do some rearranging.



This is after one week of 12/12. Since I am new I don't totally trust my judgement but my early guess is 3 females and 1 male. I should know for sure pretty soon. I'm not sure I can do much more training. Not under the screen anyway. I'm out of room. 4 plants is too much for this space. I think two plants correctly trained from the start would be the most efficient for this strain of NL in a space that is basically 32" x 54". Just depends on how long you veg. If you are new to this you will find when you pull tops back under the screen to move them you may occasionally break the stem. I have found this really has no ill effect as long as you are gentle the top will grow just fine. Basically it is accidental supercropping. I think I will start thinning the bottom a bit. The clones I took last week are barely hanging on. I wasn't here to tend to them. Not sure if they will make it but time will tell. I may take some more since I need to trim the bottom of the plants a little anyway.

Day 13 of 12/12 and everything is looking good. Santa stopped by and brought me a new light. I am now running two of the G8LED 450 Bloom panels. Really makes a difference in the coverage. One light by their recommendations is big enough to cover 12 sq ft, but I think that is pushing it. At any rate the plants are healthy and are really liking the extra light. The other good news is it looks like I have four girls!!!. Keeping my fingers crossed for no herms. But there are definitely female flowers on all four plants with no signs of male flowers anywhere. Hope I don't jinx myself.

I have clipped most of the growth under the screen and used the tops to start new clones the right way this time. The new clones are looking good and should be ready to start vegging in a couple of weeks. My coverage on this scrog is not even and it is now obvious to me that you need to start training the plant as soon as possible. I waited too late on these. 4 plants is too much for this space. 2 plants is probably ideal. I think I might switch to 1 plant next time and concentrate on training.

Rez change outs are looking good. It's always clean and clear. Fortunately I don't have to worry about the temperature as it is staying a pretty constant 70 degrees. pH typically rises to around 6.3 in a weeks time. I have been adjusting it to 5.8 on rez changes and so far have not had to worry about it. The plants seem to like it so I don't see any reason to change. I have slowly raised the strength to 1000ppm. I am currently using 2:1 bloom and micro. I stopped using the grow when I went to 12/12 and so far I can't see any difference. 2 gallons now fills the buckets to where 3 gallons filled them at the start. Must be a bunch of roots in there!!!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!