BlackMesa LED Grow, Paralyzer & Purple Widow

Hello all,

I will being doing a pure LED grow from seed to finish. Please understand that this will not be a best case scenario in terms of yield as I have seedlings spaced 2 weeks apart and have 2 seedlings that are recovering from an over-watering issue due to evil pete moss. To show you maximum yield I would need a total of 6 females for the space and coverage each in it's own 3.75 gallon pot and working with either SCROG or LST tactics applied. Rather then waiting for perfect conditions I figured why not and I'll do the best I can for what I have to work with! =)

The strains:

4 - Purple Widow - currently 3 days from seed.
4 - Paralyzer - currently 16 days from seed.

Not a primary focus:

4 - Paralyzer along the perimeter just to see if they produce anything at all rather then throwing them out.

Lighting, Soil, Grow environment:

2 - Blackstar 240W LED panels each running at 133-140 watts of actual output.

Custom soil mix as LED growing requires a very light mix to make up for lack of radiant heat. I use 40% organic potting mix, 40% Perlite and 20% Black potting soil. I am also using the opposite mix for the purple widow to figure which mix works better in the future, 40% Black Soil, 20% organic & 40% Perlite.

Grow environment includes 4' x 2' grow tent @ 5' height, 8" floor fan & 6" suspended fan, 4" Inline for Carbon Scrubber. I am also using an intelligent electrical fire prevention power strip with advanced sensors for added peace of mind.

Temperatures are between 77F - 82F based on outside temps. I have noticed a pattern that LED lights only kick up the grow area temps 1-2 degrees beyond room temps.


As mentioned it is impossible to provide you with a "maximum results" grow due to not starting with the required 6 females all in proper planters, since I am starting from non-fem seeds I had to make compromises I wouldn't normally make such as 2 seedlings sharing a 3.75 gallon pot in regards to possibly having to remove one due to unwanted gender. So with that in mind... Enjoy! Feel free to question and comment in a constructive manner.

One last thing! I will being doing a experiment near the end to put the "Purple" in purple widow that doesn't require and type of chemicals or additives! Stay tuned...

These pics are from about 3 days ago and unfortunately they don't look as good today due to a PH issue. I should have checked my tap water PH level before I even started but figured why bother because I didn't have issues in the past and thought the soil would buffer just fine.

So I've learned my lesson and won't make this oversight again. I also lucked out and harvested 60 gallons of rain water that is testing out at 6.2 PH so will just use this the duration of the grow. I guess I'm not too bummed about the Paralyzer because their recovery time should give the Purple Widow ample time to play catch up.

I will Take new pics of the plants showing PH issues shortly.

Nice, looking forward to this getting going. Are you using the 240w blackstar flowers? Or the 240w HO (high outputs)?

PuffPuffPassed said:

Nice, looking forward to this getting going. Are you using the 240w blackstar flowers? Or the 240w HO (high outputs)?

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I'm using the flower models but plan to get the HO version in the near future when I can get a dedicated veg area up. I've been plagued with crappy tap water since the beginning but should have major growth spurt after they recover....well I hope I see the HO model was kicking out some impressive growth for you... I can't wait till I'm back on track and can get some of that going on over here!

Yeah I was quite impressed, the 240 HO and 2 90w ufo's veg'd 9 plants nicely, so I cant wait to see what 2 HO 240's will do!
Ideally I want to get 2 of the 240w flowers and set them up shining at side angles like I had the UFO's towards the end of their use.. but i'm going to wait it out to see what this 500w can do.

Update: I'm pretty bummed out and really hope the plants rebound soon. I did indeed have a PH issue but it wasn't anything major and I had healthy plants before adding nutes...It wasn't apparent at first because it didn't start at the tips but now I do indeed have burn't tips. All I used was seedling strength (1/2 tea spoon Grow Big) in 1 gallon that was used on 3 containers and everything those 3 containers are all having issues now. I've decided to flush and then sit back and play the waiting game. The purple Widow is fine and exempt from this issue so that's good news at least.

These plants are pretty resistant. Stick with water for a few more waterings, and next time you nute use 1/4 strength if that.

I started using nutes 1 week in, but only started with 1 drop of each: voodoo juice, superthrive, pro tekt, dyna-gro pro foliage, and b 52 mixed in a 1/2 gallon of water. It's always easier to add more but every day is for learning

PuffPuffPassed said:

These plants are pretty resistant. Stick with water for a few more waterings, and next time you nute use 1/4 strength if that.

I started using nutes 1 week in, but only started with 1 drop of each: voodoo juice, superthrive, pro tekt, dyna-gro pro foliage, and b 52 mixed in a 1/2 gallon of water. It's always easier to add more but every day is for learning

Click to expand...

Sup BlackMesa, I too had slight nute burns trying to feed at 25% of Nute strength, a couple weeks early. I ususally feed week 3 after the FFOF is used up. But I decided to start in the middle of week 1 and I got minor burns. So Now I am watering only water next few feeds until I am closer to the 3 week mark. Don't worry you did the right thing with the flushing, and you should be ok now.

I was going to use 25% or even half strength but figured why bother, I've read from multiple sources that the odds of burning from Organic based fertilizers are slim, well that probably doesn't apply to concentrated organic nutes. I have a lot of "new" things going on here. I'm new to using Grow Big, I'm new to using the type of soil I have mixed up & new to growing with LED in general.

Until this nute burn issue occurred I was stoked at how short and node packed the LEDs were making the seedling, but yes as stated this is a live and learn situation and I will always start with tiny amounts of ferts at the 3 week marker and work my way up depending to how the plants react to the feeding. As I've said before, the Purple widow should have it's chance to catch up now.

One of the nute burned plants is showing signs of recovery already, It's my mutant that I topped once and am getting 5 new tops! This thing is ridiculous...I'm getting 4 bud sites from every node, well 5 on the one topping. If this ends up being female I might yank it and re-veg it to be a prized mother. For the sake of keeping everything as even as possible I topped everything else and decided to take advantage of the temporary stunting so the Purple Widow can play catch up. New pics in a few days once I get turned around.

I'm curious about how the LED's will do up the Purple Widow? I haven't seen an LED journal yet regarding colored genetics so I'm curious if the LED light will play a role in bringing the purple out.

yo what up mesa lookin good im subbed up for the ride

Thanks For checking it out =)

I've lost a decent amount of fan leaves unfortunately but they are indeed making a slow comeback with new growth. The Purple Widow is doing fine but is just now starting to show some growth because When I freaked out and thought I had a PH issue I made the decision to transplant early just to make sure they would be safe in my new mix.

I'm not bummed however because this taught me a lesson on using "Grow Big" and the Widow will take off soon to catch up if not surpass the recovering plants. Live and learn! I've been rotating the planters and redirecting fans daily to help dry up excess moisture from having to flush.

I am impressed with my mutant, take a look at the 5 tops I scored from a single topping!

Looks like they will bounce back, here's hoping from one LED head to another.

Thanks! They are looking better every day and are now picking up steam, just since last night there has been more growth then in the last week. I am going to do my very best to make this a successful grow.

I did a little LST to the 2 plants in round containers to keep them in check and they seem to be making there way back. I decided to wait at least a few weeks before I make any attempt at feeding them again. All the nute burned plants are slowly getting their color back and I will post some updated pics soon.

I decided in the next day or 2 that I will be modding out the grow tent by installing a rail along the top that organizes wires and allows some small 4" fans I have to be moved around easily.

the plants will grow nice in veg when you put them in flower they will stop growing the buds will look like they have snow on them all buds will be small i put 3 600watt leds in my flower room this what happpen to me in my veg room i have 4 300watt leds to get big buds you have to have 600 or 1000watt hps i use and sell leds kentrugrolights

The plants are looking much, much better now and are growing at a faster rate every day. I lost most of my fan leaves from the nute burn but the re-growth made up for it and then some. There still growing short and packing the nodes so I have been playing with the LED light height every few days to find the perfect distance.

The Purple Widow was going slow because of the early transplant but is very healthy and seems to be picking up steam now. I only took a pic of one of the Purple Widows because they currently look all identical anyway.

All Paralyzer has been topped twice to buy time for the Purple Widows to catch up. I haven't decided if I'm going to top the PW yet but if I do it will only be once but that all depends on how far ahead everything else is. I have a feeling the PW will explode soon and surpass the Paralyzer because it is and hopefully will be problem free. =)

I totally redid the grow tent today to improve, humidity, ventilation and grow space. I originally had my inline carbon scrubber on the ground sticking up like a tower. I moved it finally in it's proper place on the top back wall of the tent. I also ditched a 6" floor fan that was on the ground for two 4" fan on both sides of the ceiling. After everthing was done and re-wired,new ducting etc... My temps are down even further and I have much more room on the floor level now.

I should also add that my humidity levels were way too high during lights out because the fans and inline shut off when the lights go out so I did some re-wiring so ventilation is maintained 24/7.

2 of my purple widow got a little wind burn (one of the reasons I did the tent over) and I hope they will be ok and get over it. Other then that everything is growing and getting back to normal. I'll post some pic's of the re-organized new and improved tent soon.

I think my soil mix has PH buffing issues, a jacked up amount of nutes in it and possibly slow release nutes that were pre mixed in and are being over released due to how slow the soil is drying out.

So here is the new game plan: I have decided to start the flowering in a last attempt to not have to toss them out and start over, I figure that if I do have jacked up soil with excess or abundant slow release in the mix that the flowing stage will neutralize the issue. If they surprize me and green up or start growing better I may just chop everything into clones so I have a 100% female rate for my hydro setup.

Let me say that I have had 3 very successful grows back to back via Hydro and probably would have in soil also if I would have used the proven brands like Sunshine mix, Fox Farm or Pro mix. I made a bad decision and am paying the price for that. The plants have been vegging for 6 to 8 weeks and are at the level of what Hydro would do in a week! My next grow I am going back to hydro because it's what I know and the lighting fast veg time is what I want.

So it's official I have started the flowering time and am now in the process of building a hydro system that fits my tent perfectly. If there is one thing to learn from my fail it should be to never take a shortcut on soil if you want to avoid a landslide of issues!

Below you can see they are growing but still showing burns and possibly nute lockout to some degree as they are not going back to dark green.