Blackdog Platinum XL-U 750W - Aliens on Moonshine (x4) & Blue Dream (x4)

Hi RIU - I thought that I would start to contribute after a bit of just leeching information from y'all.

Here's what we got:

Starting with the first pic, we have "Silver", "Truman", "Mr. Popular" & "Wiggles" - these are the Blue Dream. Next, we have "Pinky", "The Brain", "Sister Mary Francis", and "Buddy" - these are the Aliens On Moonshine.



Notice the huge difference with genetics. You get what you pay for...

EQUIPMENT
8'x8' Gorilla Grow Tent
8-Bucket General Hydroponics Powergrower (a cross between recycling DWC and Top Drip) with 17 gal reservoir and 17 gal controller
4-Blackdog 750w Platinum XL-U LED's (Only running 2 in Veg, 3 in Flower)
2-Can Fan 6" HO
2-Can Lite Carbon Scrubbers
Airstones, etc.
1/10 hp Sunleaves Elemental H2O Chiller

NUTRIENTS
Using the 0-8-16 LUCAS Formula to get our system fully dialed in before switching to alternatives and additives
CaliMagic
Hydrogen Peroxide

PLANTS (Hydroton)
4-Aliens on Moonshine
4-Blue Dream

This is our baselinegrow using Blackdog's Platinum XL-U series LED. Right now we have two, 750W vegging our eight plants.

We have run into a couple of issues so far:

1) Platinum XL-U's get hot - we have a constant room temp of 75-86 degrees (night-day, respectively)
- An aside, always replace the ratchet systems that Blackdog gives you. You buy a $1000 light and the hanging clips are so so so terrible. I refused to dangle my investment from puny aluminium clips.

2) General Hydroponics gives you blue tubing with the kit...which wont keep out algae growth with the warm water. Ridiculous. So we had to do a bit of an emergency flush and redesign a week into veg. But we have now covered our medium and got black tubing - so no more algae.

3) High res temps have given us some root rot. So the Blue Dreams are hurting quite a bit as they are much more an environmentally dependent genetic. Aliens on Moonshine, however, is going like gangbusters (though would benefit from a cooler res temp). This JUST got solved with the addition of a chiller.

I will have pictures up ASAP - and will pull some timelapse video of the grow as soon as I can.

My first report is that the Platinum XL-U's are just rocking and rolling. Especially with the better and more resilient genetics, I have 3/4 thick epistems/stalks and we are just hitting our three-week mark in vegging!

I'll keep everyone posted!

Best,

Smacksjack

Looking good so far
I think I saw your youtube last night?

You did - but a few things went wrong. One of which was youtube's stabilizing effect sucked the life out of the vid. Not to mention google+/google not letting me do a business name.

All is fixed now and the (for real) youtube channel is now live.

I will also be journaling this grow in Forums, because...well...the journal feature on RIU suuuuuuuucks. So follow me here.

Smacks Jack is me, the grower, and we are Stoopendous Collective.

Thanks for the interest and I'll keep you posted with more pics. E-mail with any questions - [email protected] and make sure to check out further pics on our google+/youtube account.

I will forever pay for better genetics. These are the Aliens on Moonshine...

[video=youtube_share;jSKkK4iY0rs]http://youtu.be/jSKkK4iY0rs[/video]

And a nice walkthrough of our new grow set-up!!

Best,

Smacks Jack

looks good, thinking abt them blackdog led platinum xl but dam there pricey

jimbo16 said:

looks good, thinking abt them blackdog led platinum xl but dam there pricey

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Certainly are...but Stoopendous Collective pooled the cash to pull all this together. I would certainly think about dialing back our whole grow if it was just me involved! It's a lot to manage.

As for the lights, we have four of them, so I totally get the $$ issue. But with a lifetime guarantee and a three year warranty on everything (after the three years, you just pay for shipping and they pay parts and labor). So I figure you get what you pay for...could have got cheaper ones, but I don't know how to solder a diode panel. I'm a gardener.

I flowered my closet grow with ONE of these when I first got it and it fried all of my plants. Produced some of the densest buds I have ever grown, but I didn't have the height for the XL-U's. Make sure you have at least 18"+ from the tops of your plants at all time, it will bleach the chlorophyll right out of the leaves.

Blackdog does make some pretty awesome full spectrum lights made for 2.5x2.5ft (2x2 flowering footprint) rooms...around $600....and by the time you spend all the money on cooling, light bulbs, etc. for HID/HPS, a $600 strong-ass LED sounds pretty good!

Noob grower here, I thought Blue Dreams were good genetics?! In this case, not the best!! This looks like a sweet grow. Those LEDs are wicked.

I am going to look into the Blackdog 2X2 lights you mentioned. Currently running a 135W Blackstar in a 2X2 and its just not cutting it in my opinion. Supplementing with CFLs, but Id rather not as things are kind of crowded. Though for the price I may look into a 400W CMH.

Sorry for getting off topic, good luck with this grow.

smacksjack said:

Certainly are...but Stoopendous Collective pooled the cash to pull all this together. I would certainly think about dialing back our whole grow if it was just me involved! It's a lot to manage.

As for the lights, we have four of them, so I totally get the $$ issue. But with a lifetime guarantee and a three year warranty on everything (after the three years, you just pay for shipping and they pay parts and labor). So I figure you get what you pay for...could have got cheaper ones, but I don't know how to solder a diode panel. I'm a gardener.

I flowered my closet grow with ONE of these when I first got it and it fried all of my plants. Produced some of the densest buds I have ever grown, but I didn't have the height for the XL-U's. Make sure you have at least 18"+ from the tops of your plants at all time, it will bleach the chlorophyll right out of the leaves.

Blackdog does make some pretty awesome full spectrum lights made for 2.5x2.5ft (2x2 flowering footprint) rooms...around $600....and by the time you spend all the money on cooling, light bulbs, etc. for HID/HPS, a $600 strong-ass LED sounds pretty good!

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makes sense you get what you pay for in the long wrong thanks again for your input

MightyMike530 said:

Noob grower here, I thought Blue Dreams were good genetics?! In this case, not the best!! This looks like a sweet grow. Those LEDs are wicked.

I am going to look into the Blackdog 2X2 lights you mentioned. Currently running a 135W Blackstar in a 2X2 and its just not cutting it in my opinion. Supplementing with CFLs, but Id rather not as things are kind of crowded. Though for the price I may look into a 400W CMH.

Sorry for getting off topic, good luck with this grow.

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Well, Blue Dream is a good genetics. It's just a common genetics and to be honest, it's probably good we started with it because we would not have known some of the problems were actually happening had the blue dream not reacted so negatively toward warm air & water temps, or big swings in pH.

Unfortunately, they are just sensitive. They like a warm air, cool root base, and we weren't giving them what they needed. BUT - we aren't in flower yet, so they are going to run pretty fast now that everything is fixed up nicely. I'll do a video every week, so check back.

Yeah - CMH might be a better idea if your case is small...As great as Blackdog LED's are, I am starting to believe all this negative LED talk comes from small hobby growers. Which is totally legit. I think LED's work better with a larger footprint with a higher wattage...

For example, their BD-Micro is only 135True Watts/270 LED Watts...so regardless of your flowering footprint or veg footprint, it just may not be enough light energy to really get those buds-a-flowerin'. So in a small closet grow, if you really want to push them hard, I'd go CMH, or keep with the LED you have and CFL supplement. But if you have the space and the money, LED's are a great way to cut down on overall grow costs. We only pay 100 bucks bi-monthly in utilities and can grow and flower 8 plants with two of these XL-U's...though we are flowering with three.

Food for thought!

I'm not really negative on LED, I think they're pretty cool actually. It's my fault, should've gone with the 240W+ Blackstar. Oh well, live and learn. It mainly comes down to upfront and operating costs for me. CMH is cheaper upfront but requires more energy to operate. The LEDs are the opposite. I like the energy efficiency of the LEDs as well as their cool operating temps as my tent is so small, but I am still a bit skeptical about penetration. Again, my experience is very limited so my opinion on this is just about worthless.

I will only lurk in your thread from now on , sorry to derail again. Looking forward to your next update.

Not necessarily you - but a lot of people are, and reasonably so. Yeah - upfront $$ and wattage are king in the LED game. It's tough to really flower crazy heavily without proper wattage lamps (and color spectrum, etc.) Blackdog does save you some $ by making their Universal series, which is what we are using. Full spectrum lighting, photoperiod only.

As for penetration, it is the exact same situation. $$ and Wattage. Can you sink $ universal spectrum 240+W with 5w Diodes? Then the penetration might be worth it. For us, we are trying to set a bit of an example for indoor growing in the Seattle area - a lot of legislation is encouraging huge indoor grows, where you can bet someone will run 50+ CHM lamps on full blast 24 hours a day. LED's significantly save you $$ and energy in the long run (environmentally, etc.)

If sinking $ into a LED full spectrum garden isn't your bag, LED's make killer veg lights, so pick one up for the right spectrum for 1/4 of the price and just veg with them - California Light Works or Blackdog are the preferred brands...and a 200w one will crush the veg in a month for a small cabinet. Gets them ready for CMH/MH flowering.

Lurk all you want - we are learning this process too. So learn with us.

More pics and videos tomorrow - we added another 750w Platinum XL-U to our 8 plants - our current wattage is 2250W True (4500W LED) and we are maintaining at the LUCAS recommended 1300 PPM. Are gradually decreasing hours to 12/12.

Tonight we just switched it to 14/10 and tomorrow or wednesdsay, 12/12. So get ready to see what these can do in flower. I just flushed the whole system today, added our "flowering" extensions so I can space the buckets out to fill the 4'x8' room.

got a slight case of Powdery Mildew - slammed the whole system with Actinovate, and we just did our second foliar spray tonight. We will kill the borgs. all of them.

Thanks for listening and for the interest.

-Smacks Jack & Stoopendous Collective

Great looking grow smacksjack! Any updates? I was curious to try out one of those Blackdog's for a long time but went with a Gavita HPS mainly due to monetary constraints. No complaints though, the Gavita is great, aside from the fact that it requires a 240v outlet. It seems like Blackdogs are top of the line as far as LED's go. I don't know what brand of LED they are using now, is it CREE? I have always thought that if people are going to make a comparison between LED's and HPS that they should match true wattage and not go with that "LED watts" metric. I think LED companies do themselves a disservice by trying to market that way.

Btw, what hydrogen peroxide are you using - 35% food grade, or the CVS 3% kind? I have a thread on this and I'm curious about what people report.

Redoctober said:

Great looking grow smacksjack! Any updates? I was curious to try out one of those Blackdog's for a long time but went with a Gavita HPS mainly due to monetary constraints. No complaints though, the Gavita is great, aside from the fact that it requires a 240v outlet. It seems like Blackdogs are top of the line as far as LED's go. I don't know what brand of LED they are using now, is it CREE? I have always thought that if people are going to make a comparison between LED's and HPS that they should match true wattage and not go with that "LED watts" metric. I think LED companies do themselves a disservice by trying to market that way.

Btw, what hydrogen peroxide are you using - 35% food grade, or the CVS 3% kind? I have a thread on this and I'm curious about what people report.

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Hey RedOctober - Well, since we have been stupid busy starting our business, plus we all got second jobs, needless to say, we are happy that the grow is on autopilot now. Otherwise we would be screwed.

As for the Blackdogs, why don't you judge for yourself? First, we do have a youtube channel you can keep up to date with.

STOOPENDOUS COLLECTIVE - YOUTUBE!

If you don't swing that way, check out the pictures on the next post. End of week 6...going into week 7. Each plant has about 25+ tops to it, all with massive bud growth. Because of all of the issues early on, these plants are about half the size I want to grow them. They have the potential to be trees.

TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION - we were using 35% H2O2 - I burnt myself a couple of times. No fun. Wear gloves. To be honest with you, I was impressed with it's ability to clean my lines of any of the gunk that the Blue Dream deposited, but we will need a full clean out in between grows in order to fully rid the system of what those put into it.

As for H202's ability to clear root rot? I didn't see any noticeable difference - with a combo of that and spraying topically with an antifungal for the dreaded PM that plagued our Blue Dream, it seemed to slow down symptoms, but surely did not rid it of its problems.

As for a cost/benefit of using H202, I killed 4 plants. It was worth killing them for a few reasons - primary of which is quality of our product. I just will not tolerate growing nasty cannabis. That, plus the need to upkeep with the H202, make it great for cleaning your system out, but overall, bad at treating root rot and the like.

Then again - I didn't see it work to the fullest extent because, well, I killed those plants and no longer needed it.

UPDATES:

-We killed off the blue dream. They did not like our set up and if I had an option, I would grow that outdoor, or in a really chilly, low-humidity grow room.

-We closed up those buckets and lowered PPM just a tad (1100 @ .7 conversion)

-Added a water chiller

-Bought a 40 gal, 3'x3' ebb and flow table and now have our clones in there.

-Isolated one Alien's on Moonshine that I am going to Mother until our next grow - we will be taking a break around June to reestablish a location, etc.

-The other gardener is now focusing on "POT AS PRODUCE" - where we are attempting to max out our rooms by growing veggies everywhere that cannabis isn't.

-Added a 4" can fan HO that is pulling cold air from the garage into the basement and releases it right at the base of the plants - this will boost resin production, just like an air conditioner would.

wow this is crazzy cool i needed to know this...

Redoctober said:

Great looking grow smacksjack! Any updates? I was curious to try out one of those Blackdog's for a long time but went with a Gavita HPS mainly due to monetary constraints. No complaints though, the Gavita is great, aside from the fact that it requires a 240v outlet. It seems like Blackdogs are top of the line as far as LED's go. I don't know what brand of LED they are using now, is it CREE? I have always thought that if people are going to make a comparison between LED's and HPS that they should match true wattage and not go with that "LED watts" metric. I think LED companies do themselves a disservice by trying to market that way.

Btw, what hydrogen peroxide are you using - 35% food grade, or the CVS 3% kind? I have a thread on this and I'm curious about what people report.

Click to expand...

dude you got give us more info... i been wanting to led lights for over 6 years but scared too... back then they sucked big balls 3200 they cost cheaper today, but still expensive you need a split system or 1 ton or a small a.c. portable but if your in water man you need a water chiller it will hold your air inside water the plants need that air also look into regena root its kick ass if your having root problem... i been in water for a minute take my word that thier is a big pluss...

Yeah - good thing about Blackdog - they aren't assholes.

They advertise true watts, and I believe them. 100%.

As for Cree bulbs, I am unsure. But the guys over in Boulder, CO, are good contacts and feel free to call their customer service. Awesome people.

Yeah - good thing about Blackdog - they aren't assholes.

They advertise true watts, and I believe them. 100%.

As for Cree bulbs, I am unsure. But the guys over in Boulder, CO, are good contacts and feel free to call their customer service. Awesome people.

View attachment 2961707View attachment 2961710View attachment 2961712View attachment 2961715View attachment 2961719 END OF WEEK 6!!! AVG Growing time for Aliens on Moonshine is 9-10 weeks!

oops double post.

Keep in touch everyone...try and be patient with our outreach!!!!!

thump easy said:

dude you got give us more info... i been wanting to led lights for over 6 years but scared too... back then they sucked big balls 3200 they cost cheaper today, but still expensive you need a split system or 1 ton or a small a.c. portable but if your in water man you need a water chiller it will hold your air inside water the plants need that air also look into regena root its kick ass if your having root problem... i been in water for a minute take my word that thier is a big pluss...

Click to expand...

Here's Blackdog's site.

http://www.blackdogled.com/

I would say that if your in water no matter what lights, you should use a chiller. Unless it is outside of the tent, which in that case, you might not need it.

As for the root problems, well, I took care of that by killing off those plants. Bad genetics, our set-up wasn't 100% dialed in, and I would guess Blue Dream do better in soil. So with that combo, we were asking for trouble.

With the lights - well, you can spend a $1000 on a HPS by the time you buy the lamp, replacement bulbs, etc. and then there is very little warranty to cover it. With my blackdog's, we have a lifetime warranty (after 2 years, we have to pay for shipping and parts...but they always pay for the service fees), they are the same bulbs for flower as they are for veg, and they produce very little heat.

And they are only $1200. And with 4 lights, 3 fans, a water chiller, circulating fan, pumps etc. our electric cost is $150/month. Imagine what that would be with HPS!?!?

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Smacks