First CFL/LED Hydro Drip Indoor Closet Grow

Lanaborn · #1 05-24-2009, 08:55 PM

This is my First Hydro Grow Indoors, and also a first for me in using the LED Lights for Flowering. I have a closet space measuring 2' x 2' x 4'. The actual growing space is 2' x 2' x 2', with 3 plants that's 2 cubic feet per plant of space, "Very Compact Space" is a understatement but should work for the purpose of testing these LED lights. I am using a 14 Gallon Roughneck Rubbermaid holding 2.5 Gallons of grow mix solution. The lid of the roughneck has the 3 holes cut to the size of the hydro drip pots in a zig-zag with two on the left and one on the right, later the plants will be trained to the middle of the lid lining the tops up. Each plant has a Halo Drip Ring with five drip holes. The Only things I will be looking at is Gram/Watt, and Quality of course.

Day 1 Clones are Transplanted 74-82F 45-55% Humidity
Three Casey Jones clones were transplanted into the clay hydro-tron beads and put on a 24 hour light cycle, and a 30 / 30 minute on/off drip cycle. I am doing this to keep the humidity up and keep the rock-wool moist. Two out of the three clone kicked in nicely. The clone that didn't looks to be stressed as its still green, but drooping badly. I will watch this one for the next few days if it gets worse I will pull and replace with a new clone. Here are the Pictures of the Setup and the clones.

Lanaborn · #2 05-25-2009, 08:11 PM

Day 2 74-83F 39-49% Humidity
Clones 1 & 3 are roughly the same slight growth can be seen, clone 2 is still on the fence, although I think it will pull through. Humidity dropped a lot last night, when my thermostat comes in the mail it should help keep it closer to 50% through out the day. Temperature is getting up there, I hate seeing it above 80 degrees but with an ambient outside of 77 degree, there's not much you can do, I thought, until I found a simple "redneck cooler" design. Really simple all it was, was a return off your main ventilating pipe back to a cooler box with a bottle of frozen water in a few socks to control moisture, the cooled air then trickles down to the clones and cools the lower area under the lights off. I built the setup today and plan to test it tomorrow with the high temperature I should be getting here. Here are the pictures.

Lanaborn · #3 05-26-2009, 10:56 PM

Day 3 77-85F 39-51% Humidity
All three have finally kicked in and root growth is evident on all three clones, clone 2 is now standing under its own power and wilting is slowly fading away, but it has some catching up to do. I am going to do the CFL's for four more days and if they still need more I will continue to veg them with the led panel. The heat was still high the flow back on my cooler is not to great, but having the outside house temp around 79 degrees I would say that the cooler helped keep it at 5 degrees over ambient. I plan on getting a better fan most likely a inline 4 inch doubling the CFM. Here are some more pictures.

Lanaborn · #4 05-27-2009, 10:07 PM

Day 4 81-85F 42-55% Humidity
30/60 Minute Water Cycle
Clones are looking good, still some yellowing has been getting slightly worse over time I think they need more nutrients for the growth they are putting on, I need buy a damn ppm meter. Temperature was 78-80 degree in my house but with the addition of my cooler and my new CFL heat recovering hood. The temperature only increased 4-5 degrees over ambient. I think I can do a degree or two better with a thermal blanket around the hood. Here are the pictures.

Lanaborn · #5 05-30-2009, 02:07 AM

Day 5 79-84F 47-55% Humidity 775ppm
As you can see i got my ppm meter finally, clones are all looking great, it was a ppm issue along with a pH issue that was causing them to yellow but now that the pH is balanced the nutrients are being absorbed correctly and yellowing is disappearing. Here are some pictrues of the new insulated proto-type CFL hood made cheaply with a clear tupper ware box and some ducting aluminum foil tap. Works great only 3-4 degrees over my houses' ambient temperature.

Day 6 79-83F 49-59% humidity 800ppm
All clones are still looking very nice, especially clone 1, it has put on the most growth of them all, maybe rotating the plants to this spot will help even them out. Here are today's pictures.

Lanaborn · #6 05-30-2009, 09:45 PM

Day 7 79-83F 49-55% Humidity 790ppm
Clones 1 & 3 are looking great, clone 2 I think was not fully rooted when I got it, so it will be a few day behind the rest. All in all moderately cool day with a good amount of growth, here are today's pictures.
The Led Light panel has changed from just a red, blue to a red, blue, orange configuration. Still 120 watts with 100 660nm Red Led, 10 455nm Blue and 10 610nm Orange. I went with this one because 660nm Red panels are hard to find in the 1 Watt range, normally they are 630nm, and the difference between 630nm and 660nm is like 35-40% absorption difference, 662nm wavelength is the most absorbed wavelength during flowering. Cost will be 400$, no shipping because they are located really close to where I live.

Mike42Zero · #7 05-31-2009, 02:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanaborn

Day 7 79-83F 49-55% Humidity 790ppm
Clones 1 & 3 are looking great, clone 2 I think was not fully rooted when I got it, so it will be a few day behind the rest. All in all moderately cool day with a good amount of growth, here are today's pictures.
The Led Light panel has changed from just a red, blue to a red, blue, orange configuration. Still 120 watts with 100 660nm Red Led, 10 455nm Blue and 10 610nm Orange. I went with this one because 660nm Red panels are hard to find in the 1 Watt range, normally they are 630nm, and the difference between 630nm and 660nm is like 35-40% absorption difference, 662nm wavelength is the most absorbed wavelength during flowering. Cost will be 400$, no shipping because they are located really close to where I live.

Cool grow you got going here man. Could you post a pic from under your hood and a little info about it. Really neat looking DIY job. GL hope you really get the most from your space!!.

jacko · #8 05-31-2009, 10:19 AM

Thanks for the info! I'm very interested in seeing how this LED grow goes. Keep it up.

Lanaborn · #9 05-31-2009, 04:46 PM

Hey Mike you asked about how the hood was made and to see few pictures, well I was not sure if you meant the CFL Hood that I posted about already or the LED Hood that I am soon getting, so i put both. My CFL hood is super simple all it was, was a .99 cent clear Tupperware box that I cut four holes out of. Two small ones for the CFL fixtures that screw together made from ceramic, these holes are on the short sides. The other two holes are larger 3.5" to be exact, one is a In Flow and the other is an Out Flow. I taped the inside of the box with aluminum foil ducting tape its about 90% reflective, then I covered the outside of the box with a proto-type low density foam padding for insulation.
The Led Panel will be bought from a company called Cal Nursery they are located really close to my house. The Led's are incased already in a hood with three high powered fans pulling the air up and across the leds then out the top of the panel, I plan to build a manifold around these three fans and duct it out with the same fan that is being used to bring the hot air out for the CFL's during the vegging period.
Here are the Pictures of both Hood's

Lanaborn · #10 05-31-2009, 08:30 PM

Day 8 80-82F 47-56% Humidity 810ppm
Today you could actually watch them grow it seemed. Inner foliage growth has begun after topping the plant on day 6, with the new tops shooting out and now opening up in to another set of sun leaves. Also did a water top off with some reverse osmosis water and some more nutrients to bring it back up to 810ppm. Clone 2 seems to be 4-5 days behind so I have decide to continue using the CFL Hood for 3-4 more days and see how it is doing and decide to either flower it or wait the rest of the week out before flowering it. Clone 1 is 5.5" Tall Clone 2 is 3.5" Tall Clone 3 is 5" Tall, I want to flower them before they get bigger than 8" that way they stay around 20" total. The Genetic is heavier sativa then indica which worries me a lot about stretching in the small grow area. Here are today's pictures.

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