First grow (LED + Soil + Various Autos)

slow_grow said:

Yeah, they seem solid however I ended up going with this 300W DIY kit from Timber, those Vipar 600s are headed back to amazon as soon as my cree setup arrives. I started this whole thing with unrealistic goals with too much space, too many plants, and not enough light. I'm downsizing to probably half (or less) the tent size with a 1 or 2 plant SCROG approach.

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Yeah, I was just sayin'.

OnePrays said:

It may have been due to the heat then theyre just babies give them some time might take more than a day to show you he improvements but goodluck . . .

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Thanks man. I figure if I keep myself out of it, they will recover because as it stands:

1. The bottoms are drying out
2. The light has been raised to 24" (lowest of mfg. recommended setting for veg)
3. I won't water again for a few days

Which means all I'll be doing is watching, which I think is best for the plants hahaha.

Olive Drab Green said:

Yeah, I was just sayin'.

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Agreed, I viewed pics online of their innards and it looks like the attention to detail rocks. If I were to stick to my large setup with grand plans for a vegetable and fruit garden of eden along with my cannabis, I would have certainly picked up another one of the Vipar PAR 600s to fill up the space, maybe two. They now have a 3 year warranty too which is nice.

slow_grow said:

Thanks man. I figure if I keep myself out of it, they will recover because as it stands:

1. The bottoms are drying out
2. The light has been raised to 24" (lowest of mfg. recommended setting for veg)
3. I won't water again for a few days

Which means all I'll be doing is watching, which I think is best for the plants hahaha.

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Hahaha just sit and stare I'm there with ya bud

Ok no signs of recovery, here are some updated shots in white light. I've posted a "please help" thread located here: https://www.rollitup.org/t/leaves-curling-day-9-ffof-zero-nutes-help-please.916905/

I think you're watering too much. Even if its a tiny bit like you said. Your plants right now will only need water every 3-5 days especially in those large pots, this is a main reason why people don't directly plant into large pots because the root mass isn't very large and its hard to judge where and how much to water. Need to let the plants fiend a tiny bit and stretch out for water. I let the soil dry out to about what you bought the soil at which is around 20% moisture, usually completely dry top 1/2" to 1". Your roots won't stretch and can't breath with all that water. I

Grandaddy7 said:

I think you're watering too much. Even if its a tiny bit your plants will need water every 3-5 days especially in those large pots. Let the soil dry out to about what you bought the soil at which is around 20% moisture. Your roots won't stretch and can't breath with all that water.

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Hmmm, I just got contradictory advice on the help thread. What I didn't mention above is that when I do water, I only water that area that you see is moist, never the outside perimeter. Someone said next time, water the entire thing and then let it dry out uniformly for like a week. I'm thinking I let them dry out for a few days and then give them a good uniform watering, then shift to what most folks say, water only when the pot feels light. What do you think?

My current grow I had them in larger fabric pots just like you pretty early on. I just water around the edge of the leaves. So if the plant is lets say 4" diameter I'll water maybe a 6" or 7" ring. Add a few inches each water. It'll only be a couple waters before you're doing the whole pot. The fabric pots also help even out moisture and keep up air flow. If you have too much water it blocks that and kind of negates the whole fabric pot idea. From my experience with root growth early is that they go more downward at first and then work out anyways. Even if the soil isn't wet, if you still feel moisture at all the roots can still use that. It'll still be around 20% especially towards bottom. Right now your plants are mainly focusing on root development then they'll swap back to leaves. Back and forth in veg.

Outdoor growers pretty much do this every year because they are planting into those huge wide pots. They'd waste too much water if they watered the whole pot.

Also I know you're using FFOF soil. Unless you see some deficiencies they should be good on nutes for a bit. I'd say depending on size around first 3 to 4 weeks should be fine no doubt. That soil is rich and very good.

But I think they look good, you should just keep on keepin on and you'll have a good time.

I just remembered that the mfg. suggested height for these 600s (first 2 weeks anyhow) is 36" to 40"... I've been running them at 24" these past few days and started them at like 16". They run very cool but just to ensure these little girls aren't getting too much light, I've raised the lights to 30". This would basically be in-between what I've gathered here on the forums, and what the mfg. suggests.

Plants are looking much happier today although I noticed what initially appeared to be wet spots on the one that curled the most. Upon further inspection the spots don't appear to actually be wet. I couldn't feel any moisture when lightly brushing my finger over them, they are more like glossy spots. I don't spray so I'm not sure what they could be, maybe sweat. Here is a pic of everybody and the one in question.

Ok today is officially the morning of day 10. They all seem pretty happy and responded very well to me bringing the light up. Going to let them grow into the light instead of trying to obsessively micromanage their heights. Here is a quick shot, sorry for the blurple, usually I shut off everything but the white spectrum on the lights before photos. This shot includes the curly king kush.

Well, still no letup on the curling of leaves. It has been 4 days since I watered last and the soil is feeling pretty dry at a knuckle deep so this time instead of doing a little bit of water, I watered them until I got a decent bit of run-off. I'm anxious to see how they look later this evening. Heading out of town for 4 days, I was hoping to stabilize things a bit. I hope to come back to happy girls when I return.

Day 16: Things are looking good. The distance between nodes is less than 1" so I anticipate them being pretty bushy. My new gear (6x 50w COB DIY via Timber and GL80L tent) is in. I intend on doing a full write-up of both the 300W cree setup and growlab tent. Having had a total of 3 tents spanning 3 manufacturers (Apollo, VivoSun, GrowLab) in the past few months, I'm pretty certain I can provide some solid comparisons.

I've still got that curl going on a few of these but a member turned me onto vapor pressure deficit, also known as VPD. Its a potential issue that relates to the balance between humidity both inside and outside the leaf structure. If the pressure difference of the actual moisture in the air vs. plant is too great, problems occur and the primary symptom is leaf curl. This immediately made sense because my humidity inside the tent has been fairly low and while I'm blowing some fresh air into the room, the primary source of air is very cold dry A/C air. It has been well over 80 and deep into the 90s these past few weeks. So I've taken steps to increase humidity in the tent including:

1. Filled a 5G bucket half full of water then propped a towel over a post in the center so the towel wicks the water from the bucket up through the towel which then evaporates and boosts humidity.

2. I've also started misting them at the start of their 4 hour dark period.

3. Tweaked the flu to reduce the amount of ice cold & very dry air blowing into the space.

They have tripled in size in the last week alone and this is still with zero nutes having been applied. Here is a photo from this morning. As mentioned before, I'm not going to apply a thing until they say they need something. They are starting to lighten up a bit.

This is day 18 from sprout.

The girls are in their new home with their new lights! This is Timber's 6x50W Cree CXB3590 DIY kit mounted on the frame I built yesterday. The tent is a GrowLab GL80L (4'11"x2.7"x6'7"). These girls will be cramped but after this round I'm moving towards a 2 plant 10G soil SCROG and these dimensions are quite conducive to that setup. Full review on both of the DIY lighting kit and tent are in the works.

The plants are seemingly adjusting well. These past few days they've looked a bit dull, I have a feeling they have nearly used up the soil's available nutrients, I've applied nothing to date. I'm going to apply a half dose of either advanced nutrients organic super tea or fox farms grow big at the next watering. I'm leaning towards the super tea although the NPK values (3-2-5) are better suited for bloom. From a growth standpoint they seem to be doing very well based on the hundreds of day "X" shots I've compiled while researching. The King Kush strains are on their 6th node, everyone else on their 5th.

Well, everyone is doing great except that single King Kush (issues posted here). I'm going to pull her from the tent later today and flush with a crushed uncoated asparin. Kind of depressing. It is lights out time but once back on, I'll get some updated pics up. Only changes have been the raising of my new light setup to 25".

And then there were 5... I dialed the lights down just a tad. The heat/humidity are pretty intense right now. Outside RH is a whopping 92%. Tent RH is hovering right at 70%. Looking at dehumidifiers now.

I ended up watering the problematic king kush with an uncoated aspirin crushed/dissolved in as suggested by another member. She's sitting next to a window for now. I don't want to potentially spread whatever she has to the other plants but it is also not possible for me to replicate the existing light schedule the others are getting. I go dark during the day to prevent overheating. Hopefully she looks better by tomorrow. Here is a shot of the existing 5 looking solid.

Day 21 and the 5 are doing great. They are each growing at over 1" per day kicking out nodes. I've moved them around to mix it up a bit. Dehumidifier came in today, it resides outside of the tent and when set at 50% the tent's interior seems to stabilize around 60%. Pretty bummed about my one king kush but really happy with the rest.

The bad news is my suffering king kush isn't looking much better. Including a shot of her too, the affected areas are so shiny that it looks like someone spilled polyurethane on it or something. So strange. I haven't brought her back into the tent, not sure if I'm going to. She's still growing fresh nodes so I'm hoping with the lower humidity in the surrounding area she bounces back.

What happened with your vipars?

Looks like he went COB https://www.rollitup.org/t/first-grow-led-soil-various-autos.916278/page-2#post-12860939

@Walterwhiter - opted to go with higher quality lighting in a smaller space. Planning on a 2x 10G SCROG next.