[French-Grow] HPS-Soil LED-Hydro

Hi
I decided to share my current grow with you guys, i am using 1 grow box and a stealth cupboard. I have been growing for a few years, usually marijuana in the summer, tomatos and strawberries in the winter because i cant live without them. I usually grow my stuff in hydro because its my favorite method, but with cannabis the plants tend to get too big so i also do soil in my smaller grow box. I have used LED's for a while now and im relly happy with it, but for this particular grow i have borrowed an HPS to a friend of mine, i havent grown with thos for quite a few years now and since i have learned and improved since then i am curious to see how the will work for me!

Grow box :

• 2*2ft and 5ft tall
• Cooltube and filter with simple extrator
• 250w lumatek ballast
• 250w philips son-t+ bulb (brand new)
• Galaxy hydro 300w led for veg ( not the best but works fine and easy on the bills)
• Plagron mineral fertiliser, plagron green sensation, aptus regulator for silica, humic acid and seaweed extract until week 4 flowering, and compost tea every 2 weeks or so
• I will grow the following strains : Purple afghan kush and blue cheese from dinafem and G13*hasplant from sensi ( regular)
• Plagron lightmix soil

Cupboard :

• 2.5ft*1.5ft
• Simple 100mm extraction with filter
• 300w Wyzm znet4 chinese cheap LED ( 140w real watts i think)
• DWC with 300L/M air pump with double outputs
• Plagron hydro mineral fertiliser, Plagron green sensation, aptus regulator for silica
• Original amnesia from dinafem

I have seen that chinese leds are not really appreciated on forums in general, but i have to say i was happy with this one, its very silent, well built, cheap and wuite efficient, maybe not as much as more expensive manufacturers like Kind but its also 5 times cheaper, i am not a professional grower. here is a pic of the last grow i did with that panel in a 1.5ftx1ft cupboard... :

The seeds were all germinated preyy much at the same time except PAK and G13, 1 week later. This was almost 2 moths ago, i will upload the most recent pictures when i find them.


Blue cheese on the right, PAK bottom and g13 on the left, they were 2 weeks after germination. I did not use root stimulator.

Original amensia, i cut the apex and switched to 12/12 just then, i did this because i tend to have really huge plants in hydro, and i have a height problem every.single.time. So this time i decided to switch as early as possible. well see how that goes.

EC : 1.1
PH : 5.6

I have cut the apex on the blue cheese, she was a week older than the 2 others and i want to keep them the same height. The plants are watered every 4 days approximately, i just started feeding with half strength Grow nutrients.

Original amensia in 12/12 for a week already, she didnt seem to suffer from apex cut, she is doing well.
EC:1.1
PH : 5.7

i change the nutrient solution every 7-10 days

i will upload the rest of the pictures later on, please feel free to reply or suggest

How about taking pics under normal light? Can't tell what's going on under that blurple light.

That last big plant looks just fine to me and I'm impressed with how well it did. Might have got bigger colas if you'd have chopped off all the small stuff at the bottom third of the plant before flowering it but ya did good!

OldMedUser said:

How about taking pics under normal light? Can't tell what's going on under that blurple light.

That last big plant looks just fine to me and I'm impressed with how well it did. Might have got bigger colas if you'd have chopped off all the small stuff at the bottom third of the plant before flowering it but ya did good!

Click to expand...

hi! yes i know i thought of it but it was really difficult to access, i couldnt take the plant out of the cupboard because the buds were too heavy she still yielded 140g approx, which is ok considering the very small growing space.

As for the lights yes i have some pictures taken without them and just the flash it looks better, i will upload them later, but before here are some macro shots i took of the buds from this plant. They are a little edited so the colors arent exaclty the same

Nice and sparkly which is what you want.

I have white balance on my camera so I just aim it at a white sheet of paper that's on top of the canopy hit the button to get good pics under the HPS light.

What are you using to take your pics? I have a 20mp Nikon Coolpix L32 I got last fall to replace the older version of the same camera that died. I'd like to use my old Canon AE-1 35mm as I got some close-up tubes for it at a flea market but I'm too paranoid to take pot pics to the 1 hour photo shops. I need to try out those macro tubes tho.

I get a kick when some guy having issues pots up off-colour pics and says, "What's wrong with my plant?".

I'ts burple numbnuts!

the macro pictures were shot with a canon 5 MK2, i have a leica 60mm f2 macro and a macro tube on top. For white balance when i shoot uneder hps or mh lights i adjust it afterwards in lightroom its more accurate unfortunately theres no trick with burple light since there is almost no green

I used to have my own darkroom for developing and printing B/W, colour and cibachrome. With the enlarger I could print big posters if I wanted. If I had that now I'd use the 35mm then scan the pics in with my flatbed. I used the slide thing in the scanner lid to scan in some slides I took by accident. I didn't look at the package well enough and bought slide film and then when I was out in the boonies had to use it or not take any pics at all. It didn't really do a good job of scanning the slides and I tried all sorts of settings. The prints looked a lot better.

I'd sure love to get a real decent DSLR and extra lenses, filters and stuff like I have for the 35. Next lotto for sure!

my main is a film leica, i shoot mostly bw with it, i use a plustek dedicated film scanner it works pretty good, and not too expensive, pm me if you want some sample picture

anyway heres some more recent pictures :

Everything was going smoothly, i still watered with half strenght nutrient and ph 6.5-ish, sitll vegging in 18-6

For hydro, here we are 1 week after swtiching to 12/12

EC : 1.1
PH : 5.6

I'm aboard

I use Rubbermaid tubs for DWC. One of those done as a ScroG would work great if the space were a a bit bigger. One plant with a 3x3 screen could likely double your yield tho ya done good with it free-standing. Main advantage of a tub is higher nute capacity so you don't have to bother topping up so often and watching it so closely. The shorter tubs hold 35L with the taller ones holding 50 and the lids are interchangable. I usually veg in the smaller one then switch up to the larger one before flowering.

yeah ive tried tub before, they work well, although thos big bins hold up 15 litres, its not as much as id like but its enough for the plants size that i usually aim for, i just top up once after 4 days and then change the solution 3 days later. yes i would also like to have more space, unfortunately theres not way so im trying to do the best with what ive got

For the 5th week i only have a picture of the amnesia sorry! Everything going smoothly. As you can see she is started going fast, at that point i didnt know yef if id swithec her to flowering a bit early. we will have the answer later on

EC : 1.4
PH : 5.9


The amnesia is still growing a lot, i started adding aptus régulator, it is supposed to help in reducing stretching

EC : 1.6
PH : 5.4

THe plants in soil are doing good, at this point they have been in flowering for a little bit more than 2 weeks, i think i swtiched thme a bit early, but since im a hydro guy im used to a lot of pre flower stretching and id rather be cautious than have gigantic plants. I took tome nicer pictures too . at this point i was still using half strength grow nutrients and switched to bloom nutrients, still half strength.

Here is the apex of g13 :

G13 :

And the PAK :

Everything is going ok until now

The amnesia is starting to show more and more pistils, she is still growing fast, but at this point i could tell that i swtiched to 12/12 early enough, she wont get out of hand. I am still using veg nutrients at this point. i took the picture with a cfl to see the real colors. she is doing great, not deficiency whatsoever.

here is a little detail on the little buds

In the grow box everything is going smoothly, we are now around 3 weeks after swticheing to 12/12 and 2 weeks after the first pistils showed up, i think i swtiched them a bit early, i hope i will get a decenet yield neverthless. the cfl bulb will be used later on dureing flowering.