120W LED + Rainforest 66 + Papaya

Here are some more pics of the new light including the hangers I mounted on the back. You can see in the last pic that the light rolled off the assembly line this month...pretty cool.

I'm running out of things to tinker with on this grow since it has become low maintenance, so I'm trying to get a new veg chamber going ASAP. My current tent is 32x32x60. I plan on upgrading to a 40x40x70 or 48x48x70 and using that as the new flowering chamber. Then I can use my smaller existing tent for veg and get a perpetual harvest going on.

i am a first timer and am looking at working with exactly the same setup you have going on however i plan on running a second rainforest 66 for flowering under a 1k hps.

do you feel that the rainforest will get to cramped? i am hoping that if i get a good strain that grows up and not out it should work fine. maybe top 44...anyone have any recos?

I plan on vegging under the same 120w led you have going on as well.

Jackster said:

i am a first timer and am looking at working with exactly the same setup you have going on however i plan on running a second rainforest 66 for flowering under a 1k hps.

do you feel that the rainforest will get to cramped? i am hoping that if i get a good strain that grows up and not out it should work fine. maybe top 44...anyone have any recos?

I plan on vegging under the same 120w led you have going on as well.

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Hi Jackster,

That is awesome news, I've been looking forward to seeing how the 120w works on other strains in the same or similar setup. I think with a pure indica there is a good chance of the rainforest getting cramped, so I would try a sativa/indica hybrid or pure sativa because I know I will next time around.

I think vegging with the 120w led and flowering with the 1000w hps will produce some epic buds man. However, if you don't plan on flowering under the 120w then you might want to try a different unit with more blue/white/orange. Remember that with this light being a tri-band there are only 8 individual blue lights and 8 individual white/full spectrum lights. That means you won't tap the full power of the 100 or so red lights...just saying. Best of luck with whatever you decide with and please let me know how it goes.

Here are some pics from day 4 of flowering. The thai s-skunk has responded well to the increased bloom nutes.

Day 5 flowering pic update with LEDs off.

This is so cool, i am really excited to get this going. I agree, right now my research is leading me toward pure sativa or sativia/indica mix.

My closet is 4x8 and is 14 feet tall so height will not be too much a concern as long as light gets down there. Right now i have the following clones itching to get going: 2 northern lights, 2 super silver haze, 1 daydream, 1 Burmese Widow and 1 Hindu Kush

I might just move them direct to flower in about two weeks and then get some strains going that i really want to grow. Looking at Malawi Gold or Mini and Malawi 99 from afropips as well as Jack Herer. I am also interest in finding some blackberry or black russian as I have never seen it anywhere. Looking at some other seeds as well such as white lightning and white rhino. We will see what i finally decide on.

I actually just started medicating the natural way and need to find a very high yield strain to help with my anxiety disorder so i will be sampling some different strains around LA and see what works for me.

Your plants are looking great. One thing i plan on is vegging for a min of a month, i was just in the ba with a guy who was harvsting his plants which he grew indoor in hydro and veged for over three months (maybe it was six)...he told me on average he pulls 3-5 lbs per plant!

4x8x14 sounds like a pretty awesome grow space, best of luck and be sure to start a journal for it! Those strains sound pretty nice already, but hey with more strains you are more likely to find something that works for you so right on.

I just unpacked my new 18w blue LED panel which will replace the CFLs in my clone rack. I'm also picking up an aeroponic clone machine next week which I hope will reduce cloning times and increase success %.

Peace

Jackster said:

This is so cool, i am really excited to get this going. I agree, right now my research is leading me toward pure sativa or sativia/indica mix.

My closet is 4x8 and is 14 feet tall so height will not be too much a concern as long as light gets down there. Right now i have the following clones itching to get going: 2 northern lights, 2 super silver haze, 1 daydream, 1 Burmese Widow and 1 Hindu Kush

I might just move them direct to flower in about two weeks and then get some strains going that i really want to grow. Looking at Malawi Gold or Mini and Malawi 99 from afropips as well as Jack Herer. I am also interest in finding some blackberry or black russian as I have never seen it anywhere. Looking at some other seeds as well such as white lightning and white rhino. We will see what i finally decide on.

I actually just started medicating the natural way and need to find a very high yield strain to help with my anxiety disorder so i will be sampling some different strains around LA and see what works for me.

Your plants are looking great. One thing i plan on is vegging for a min of a month, i was just in the ba with a guy who was harvsting his plants which he grew indoor in hydro and veged for over three months (maybe it was six)...he told me on average he pulls 3-5 lbs per plant!

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Where are you purchasing your LED? HTGSupply?

Jackster said:

Where are you purchasing your LED? HTGSupply?

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My 120w is from HTG and was $499 (Expensive but it was the only one available with full spectrum which I badly wanted)

My 55w tri-band ($95) and 18w blue ($29) are both from reputable ebay shops.

Here are some pics I took tonight of the clone rack after installing the 18w blue led. You can also see the two bag seed plants which have been almost completely stunted since leaving the rainforest. I expect to see some new growth now as this panel feels like a big improvement over 3x26 watt cfl's.

I switched out only one of the 6" sites for the 2" clone sites and so far so good. I started using with rockwool cubes but ended up buying 2" neoprene inserts to hold the clones in place. So along with that and Clonex, my success rate is now at about 80% as opposed to 50% rate I had with the rockwool cubes. The only thing I use in res for clones is Olivias cloning solution and it works better than just pure water.

Actingbusy said:

I switched out only one of the 6" sites for the 2" clone sites and so far so good. I started using with rockwool cubes but ended up buying 2" neoprene inserts to hold the clones in place. So along with that and Clonex, my success rate is now at about 80% as opposed to 50% rate I had with the rockwool cubes. The only thing I use in res for clones is Olivias cloning solution and it works better than just pure water.

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Interesting...so you are vegging + cloning in the rainforest at the same time? My main concern about doing that was ppm levels for the clones and possibly having too much light even if they were shaded a bit. If you could send me a pic or post one to my journal I would really like to see it in action!

Here are a few pics since I'm going for daily updates. You will notice I rotated the plant a bit, this side usually does not face the camera. ppm is currently at 712 and ph 5.68.

Good work man this is the first LED only grow that has truly impressed me. Keep proving everyone wrong! Flowering soon??

mattso101 said:

Good work man this is the first LED only grow that has truly impressed me. Keep proving everyone wrong! Flowering soon??

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Thanks mattso! This grow has already been a great learning experience for me and I'm thrilled its going so well. I'm currently on day 6 of flowering with lights on at 7am and off at 7pm.

Oh and I ordered 10 mango beans and 10 double bubble beans yesterday. The double bubble is supposed to be like bubblicious or bubblegum and just sounded like a fun strain to grow. Papaya was supposedly derived from Mango but I've never read anything that states this as fact, so I just wanted to see for myself how the Mango compares.

Here are some pic updates of papaya #1 after a week of flowering.

How bad/good is the heat coming off of those LEDS? IS it as hot as a CFL or what?

grassified said:

How bad/good is the heat coming off of those LEDS? IS it as hot as a CFL or what?

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The 55w panel puts out no detectable heat and does not even have a fan. The 120w panel puts out a very small amount of heat, but less than even one of my 26w CFLs by comparison. Even the individual LED's themselves get only slightly warm to the touch during operation and I am comfortable letting the plants grow right against them.

Besides not having to buy ducting and blowers and everything else, the biggest benefit I've realized out of this is incredibly low transpiration rates. Since there is no excess heat my plants consume less nutrient solution and less of it evaporates, so less is needed overall.

lovin the leds i am currently planning on ordering some i cant wait.

Earlier tonight I drained and cleaned the rainforest. I had to bunch up the plant with some more ties just to get it out of the tent, but after that everything went smoothly. I don't know how many people on here use rainforest's or are considering buying them but I thought it would be helpful if I share my personal cleaning method and checklist.

2-3 hours before cleaning I add about 20 gallons of cold water to a 40-gallon rubbermaid tub and ph it to 5.8. After a few hours the water reaches a good temp and I'm ready to get to work.

Turn off the power strip
Unplug the vortex sprayer
Detatch the airline tubing from the air pump (which I mount at the top of the tent)
Remove all net pots and lids not currently in use.
Carry (with help) or drag (alone) the rainforest to the bathroom where the 40-gallon tub is waiting.
Carefully remove the main lid from the rainforest (w/ plants still mounted) and place it over the 40-gallon. This submerges about half the roots in water while I work.
Dump the rainforest into bathtub and clean thuroughly.
Clean the vortex sprayer thuroughly, especially the rubber sleeve it mounts in.
Place the empty rainforest back in the tent.
Place the air stone back in the res.
Drag or carry the 40-gallon over to the tent.
Swap the main lid back on to the rainforest and put all net pots and lids back in.
Use a 1 gallon pitcher to scoop the already ph'd water from the 40-gallon and fill the rainforest.
Reattach the airline tubing to the air pump.
Reattach the vortex sprayer and activate system

I used to mess around with the drain tube and ferrying pitchers back and forth and all kinds of other crap that seemed to make sense at the time. I can tell you that maintaining the rainforest went from being a real pain in the ass to being completely painless once I added the 40-gal to the equation. Hopefully this made sense and can help somebody!

Peace

P.S. Notice that I positioned the super skunk up front now with papaya at the back. Adding the additional plant ties really helped tighten up the papaya and give the super skunk some growing room.

New pics added. Tomorrow I'm hooking up the aero cloner and taking some cuttings from papaya and thai s-skunk. I also germinated the other 4 thai s-skunk seeds and all popped and should sprout in the next 24 hours. I heard a lot of bad things about G13 labs but I must say all 5 popped and the one I've grown out is a confirmed female with high ppm tolerance and great node structure...I couldn't be more impressed with G13 labs at this point.

The two bag seed plants have recovered nicely since being put under the 18w blue led and have also grown a few inches. I'm donating these to a friend soon as I never planned to grow them to maturity, but I'll still be sad to see them go.

Pic 1: Wide angle shot of tent and clone rack
Pic 2: Rainforest
Pic 3: Future home of papaya bud
Pic 4: Thai s-skunk closeup
Pic 5: Bad seed plants recovered

Love the LED, just read a sick article about LED in high times. The UFO and Satellite system looks sooo hot.

Yesterday I had a stoner moment and manually turned off the lights and forgot to cycle them back to timer mode, so the plants got 16 hours of light. I compensated by giving them 12 hours of darkness from that point on and will gradually pull them back to the previous time over the next week. As of today it did not seem to effect either plant, so I'm not worried about them going hermie or anything like that.

The good news is that I got the aero cloner all set up this afternoon and took some fresh cuttings from papaya. I also put 4 new super skunk seeds in the small hydro system next to the bag seed plants.