So, after a long 4-5 months I have come to an end of my first grow on my new 750 watt DIY LED system. I wanted to share my results with the community as I feel I owe it to everyone who helped me build my light rig as well as paying forward what little knowledge I have to the LED and DIY community. I hope my detailed review of my grow can help someone out here be it with grow mistakes or convincing someone for or against LED. The final verdict is at the bottom if any of you don't feel like reading the specifics.
My background: This grow is my 4th overall. I am not a pro grower. I don't really have a system down with a certain nutrient line, PPM schedules or anything like that(this will come in time). I was using a Mars 2 300(i150w actual) for veg and mars 2 1200(690w) for flower. If you don't know what the Mars 2 is, I would say its known as an entry level LED light and if you don't know what it is check ebay(and the forums here) for them. Due to the constraints of my grow tent, the Mars 2 had to eventually be put on a lighrail 3.5(moving track for light) to help the box shaped LED setups get more coverage once the plants got too tall. I only grow from seed not clone due to electrical constraints.
My previous grows: My first 3 grows were done with different DIY grow methods. First was 4 DIY ebb and flow trays(AN Jungle Juice 2 part/7 plants/ roughly 12 oz dry yield), second was 3 DIY recirculating drip down bins(AN Sensi&Conniseur/7 plants 7 oz), 3rd was DIY DWC 2 gallon buckets(Canna Aqua/8 plants 5 oz). Refer to my yields here after you get to the end to see how well I did.
Now as you can see my yields were slipping as time went on, and that is in part to my not giving as much attention as the plants need, but also(in part) due to strain/seed.
The current(just done) grow: This grow was my use what I have left grow. The seeds I used were a mix of seeds that I wanted to grow, but a good amount of the seeds were freebies from my seed shops. I have always had bad luck with freebies from germination to bad yield. The nutrients I used were mostly stuff I had left over or stuff I am happy with and sticking with.
Technique/Nutrients: Again I am pretty new to growing so I dont think too far outside the box. I started with germinating seeds to rockwool to hydroton net pots. I did not top plants due to a poor experience in the past but for the first time I cut off the bottom 1/3 or so of the plants branches a few weeks before 12/12 as those usually have mixed results with lots of popcorn bud. Reservoir changed/cleaned once a week. No flushing until the final flush. 60 days veg/60 flower/ 7-10 days flush.
I stuck with the base of Advanced Nutrients Jungle Juice 2 part, as I received a TON for free from my local grow shop as part of a giveaway promotion and wanted to at least finish it off(in addition to it being part of my best yield grow). I did nothing special for the veg cycle other than the base.
All throughout I used Botanicare Silica Blast, General Hydroponics Florablend Tea and Orca mycorrhizae. I only ran CO2(sentinel controller) during veg and wanted to try during flower but my co2 regulator is cheap and was having leak issues.
For flowering I used AN JJ 2 part bloom. Week 1 I used AN Bud Blood. Weeks 2-3 AN Big Bud. Weeks 4-6 Atami Bloombastic. Weeks 6-8 Mad Farmer Mother of all Blooms and Humbolt County Gravity. Weeks 6-finish I used GH Sugar Cane.
Lighting/equipment: I used the Mars2 300 for veg(will hopefully replace with DIY next grow) and my DIY LED rig for flower. The DIY was expensive, roughly $1500 but I did not just buy a light because I needed it. I bought the piece of mind that I knew exactly what was in the system, not some clown from a company selling me on their super secret ultra bloom spectrum. I was expecting to spend near that amount on a pre built good system so I would rather know what I have in it and can point my failures at myself. My rig was built from 15 cree cxb3070 @ 5000k, 5 150 watt Mean Well Drivers and 5 long ass heat sinks all with the advice of the very helpful people of this forum. The nice clean white light was refreshing to see every time I stepped into the grow room after 3 grows of the purple rave colors that the Mars 2 provided.
My newest grow system is a bought C.A.P ebb and grow system with hydroton. It gives me the benefits of ebb and flow(best yield up to this point) but allows me to move or remove individual plants from the system so every plant has its own growing area(I am aware of the issues with water, root rot, etc). It also has short(1') buckets which are good for my 6'x6'x6' grow tent.
I bit the bullet on this whole grow and spent $400 on a Bluelab PH controller. Expensive.....but boy is it worth it(you can get a cheaper PH controller from Milwalkee MC122 + MP810 combo for closer to $200). Its great for someone like myself that spends many hours a day away and sometimes has to travel days for work. Coming home and every single time seeing 5.8 is a thing of beauty. I really cant recommend this enough if you have a single reservoir system.
Strains: I grew about 12-13 seeds, 10 germinated, 2 were males(from a supposed pack of feminized that was all males, thanks BC Bud Depot) for 8 total. I wanted to grow 12 but 9 seems right after this grow. The strains that survived:
PX1:120g
EWE2:60g
PX2:100g
MK:90g
MM(2 plants):140g
LH:150g
LSD:150g
Total Results: Actual number which I remember
810.4g/28.5 OZ
1.07 grams per watt
Final Verdict: BLOWN AWAY. Going into this I was optimistically hoping for, at best, a pound. I shattered my old record of 12 OZ and got roughly 28.5. It was an enormous amount of work to cut and dry but I will be set for a very long time. I over dried some of the bud but hopefully the cure process will help resolve any issues with that. I'll answer what I can if anyone has any questions but I'm more than sold on the ability of LED. Anyone who can afford to invest in a good pre-made LED system should really consider DIY as I think your money will go further when you do not have to pay for someone elses assembly, marketing, cut corners and so on. My old Mars 2(690 watt actual) was around $450 and while you could get more of those, then you are running a lot more energy. I am not going to comment on the effectiveness of something like a Spectrum King 400(450 watt $1200 or so) or Black Dog 800(800/$2350) or any of the high end LED's but it certainly feels your money goes further with DIY(again my setup 750 watt/$1500). Save money and go DIY!
edit: Linking here to a post thanking some people that helped with the build as well as a bit more detailed info on the DIY light rig.
My background: This grow is my 4th overall. I am not a pro grower. I don't really have a system down with a certain nutrient line, PPM schedules or anything like that(this will come in time). I was using a Mars 2 300(i150w actual) for veg and mars 2 1200(690w) for flower. If you don't know what the Mars 2 is, I would say its known as an entry level LED light and if you don't know what it is check ebay(and the forums here) for them. Due to the constraints of my grow tent, the Mars 2 had to eventually be put on a lighrail 3.5(moving track for light) to help the box shaped LED setups get more coverage once the plants got too tall. I only grow from seed not clone due to electrical constraints.
My previous grows: My first 3 grows were done with different DIY grow methods. First was 4 DIY ebb and flow trays(AN Jungle Juice 2 part/7 plants/ roughly 12 oz dry yield), second was 3 DIY recirculating drip down bins(AN Sensi&Conniseur/7 plants 7 oz), 3rd was DIY DWC 2 gallon buckets(Canna Aqua/8 plants 5 oz). Refer to my yields here after you get to the end to see how well I did.
Now as you can see my yields were slipping as time went on, and that is in part to my not giving as much attention as the plants need, but also(in part) due to strain/seed.
The current(just done) grow: This grow was my use what I have left grow. The seeds I used were a mix of seeds that I wanted to grow, but a good amount of the seeds were freebies from my seed shops. I have always had bad luck with freebies from germination to bad yield. The nutrients I used were mostly stuff I had left over or stuff I am happy with and sticking with.
Technique/Nutrients: Again I am pretty new to growing so I dont think too far outside the box. I started with germinating seeds to rockwool to hydroton net pots. I did not top plants due to a poor experience in the past but for the first time I cut off the bottom 1/3 or so of the plants branches a few weeks before 12/12 as those usually have mixed results with lots of popcorn bud. Reservoir changed/cleaned once a week. No flushing until the final flush. 60 days veg/60 flower/ 7-10 days flush.
I stuck with the base of Advanced Nutrients Jungle Juice 2 part, as I received a TON for free from my local grow shop as part of a giveaway promotion and wanted to at least finish it off(in addition to it being part of my best yield grow). I did nothing special for the veg cycle other than the base.
All throughout I used Botanicare Silica Blast, General Hydroponics Florablend Tea and Orca mycorrhizae. I only ran CO2(sentinel controller) during veg and wanted to try during flower but my co2 regulator is cheap and was having leak issues.
For flowering I used AN JJ 2 part bloom. Week 1 I used AN Bud Blood. Weeks 2-3 AN Big Bud. Weeks 4-6 Atami Bloombastic. Weeks 6-8 Mad Farmer Mother of all Blooms and Humbolt County Gravity. Weeks 6-finish I used GH Sugar Cane.
Lighting/equipment: I used the Mars2 300 for veg(will hopefully replace with DIY next grow) and my DIY LED rig for flower. The DIY was expensive, roughly $1500 but I did not just buy a light because I needed it. I bought the piece of mind that I knew exactly what was in the system, not some clown from a company selling me on their super secret ultra bloom spectrum. I was expecting to spend near that amount on a pre built good system so I would rather know what I have in it and can point my failures at myself. My rig was built from 15 cree cxb3070 @ 5000k, 5 150 watt Mean Well Drivers and 5 long ass heat sinks all with the advice of the very helpful people of this forum. The nice clean white light was refreshing to see every time I stepped into the grow room after 3 grows of the purple rave colors that the Mars 2 provided.
My newest grow system is a bought C.A.P ebb and grow system with hydroton. It gives me the benefits of ebb and flow(best yield up to this point) but allows me to move or remove individual plants from the system so every plant has its own growing area(I am aware of the issues with water, root rot, etc). It also has short(1') buckets which are good for my 6'x6'x6' grow tent.
I bit the bullet on this whole grow and spent $400 on a Bluelab PH controller. Expensive.....but boy is it worth it(you can get a cheaper PH controller from Milwalkee MC122 + MP810 combo for closer to $200). Its great for someone like myself that spends many hours a day away and sometimes has to travel days for work. Coming home and every single time seeing 5.8 is a thing of beauty. I really cant recommend this enough if you have a single reservoir system.
Strains: I grew about 12-13 seeds, 10 germinated, 2 were males(from a supposed pack of feminized that was all males, thanks BC Bud Depot) for 8 total. I wanted to grow 12 but 9 seems right after this grow. The strains that survived:
- G13 Labs Seeds Pineapple Express and Pineapple Express #2(freebie seed): Both nice plants but the end the bud was a bit airy/light. Both had very nice growth from the cola(PX2 had soda can sized cola at points and PX1 wasn't too bad either) and the ends of the branches turned out pretty well especially on the PX1. Both turned out pretty average overall and both were a bit airy.
- Humboldt Seed Organization Ewe-2 and Master Kush(both freebie seeds): I kind of blew it on the EWE-2. I am hesitant to top plants after a bad experience and EWE-2 is one of those strains that begs for it. Well spaced popcorn sized bud on every branch, tons of crystals to where the leaves were turining white, very dense buds but I needed more branches to pull a good yield. Master Kush seemed pretty average all around.
- Seedsman Seeds (2) Mamma Mia(freebie seeds): Average everything, wish I tried topping one of the 2 I had to see how it turned out.
- Barneys Liberty Haze and LSD: Both of these turned out pretty similar. Both had a ton of bud, packed with crystals. LH was quite a bit taller than all my other plants by a foot or so and LSD was having trouble growing so it got a lot of extra attention(typically was in the center of the other plants most of the grow)throughout its life but was still my shortest plant. LSD had the least branches but had the most bud per branch by a mile and the buds were the only ones I can describe as gooey. It got annoying how often I had to change gloves while working on the cutting/drying process with this strain, it was like I was wearing velcro gloves. I hate to be a shill again but in my limited experience, Barneys Farm is the best company I have tried out there. Some don't make it out of the rockwool(could be my fault) but the strains they have always turn out to do great in yield, weight, taste and high. Blue Cheese(my favorite thus far), Critical Kush, LSD, Pineapple Chunk and G13 Haze have all done me very well in all aspects.
PX1:120g
EWE2:60g
PX2:100g
MK:90g
MM(2 plants):140g
LH:150g
LSD:150g
Total Results: Actual number which I remember
810.4g/28.5 OZ
1.07 grams per watt
Final Verdict: BLOWN AWAY. Going into this I was optimistically hoping for, at best, a pound. I shattered my old record of 12 OZ and got roughly 28.5. It was an enormous amount of work to cut and dry but I will be set for a very long time. I over dried some of the bud but hopefully the cure process will help resolve any issues with that. I'll answer what I can if anyone has any questions but I'm more than sold on the ability of LED. Anyone who can afford to invest in a good pre-made LED system should really consider DIY as I think your money will go further when you do not have to pay for someone elses assembly, marketing, cut corners and so on. My old Mars 2(690 watt actual) was around $450 and while you could get more of those, then you are running a lot more energy. I am not going to comment on the effectiveness of something like a Spectrum King 400(450 watt $1200 or so) or Black Dog 800(800/$2350) or any of the high end LED's but it certainly feels your money goes further with DIY(again my setup 750 watt/$1500). Save money and go DIY!
edit: Linking here to a post thanking some people that helped with the build as well as a bit more detailed info on the DIY light rig.
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