Penny For your Thoughts! New Grower!

PRBudman

Member
Heyy, Well decided to start growing my own harvest of these bad boys and im looking for any input that could help me out and ill keep this thread updated. Anyway lets get to the newbie stuff.

I had orginally began growing them outside on a porch but decided to move them in. I bought some cheap flourecent lights from walmart til i recently purchased a Full Spectrum LED Light(620nm) that now sits about 18" above the plants.



Theyre in a small pots. In Miracle Grow For Fruits and Vegetation or something like that. I also give them Miracle Grow All purpose Plant Food every 2 weeks. Other then that normal water every 2 days or so. Theres a total of 7 plants that im starting with. Just to see how it goes.




They're in a closet and here a some pictures of the actual plants. I've had the bottom smaller leaves fall off of one of the plants and some are looking like they are starting to turn a little yellow. I think i also might have a small gnat problem i tried the Cigarette Buds in Warm Water and Spray'em trick. and also put small tubs of water and soak in between the plants for insects or w.e.. not sure if it works but w.e lol. cant harm it.








(the one that had the bottom leaves fall off)

Well. Any advice of comments or if you just wanna make fun of me. Will be appreciated! Thanks!

Happy Growing!
 

WaxxyNuggets

Active Member
Awww come on no need to make fun man!! But yeah the above poster is correct, move your lights a lot closer so that the space between the leaf sets (internodes) are closer together. If you dont you'll have yourself some very tall flimsy plants! Tall does not mean more yield :D And for the feeding schedule, i would lay off any fertilizing before you begin to see a slight yellowing in the bottom leaves. Most Miracle grow soil has a lot of fertilizer out of the bag.
 

chrishydro

Well-Known Member
Must lower the light or they will just keep reaching. That happened to me in hydro so I just replanted them with the first leaves above the top of planter and it worked. But lights must be lowered;
 

melungeonman

Active Member
LEd lights can be moved way down over the plant they emit less heat than florecent. Also, seperate those plants this will create more problems than you want to deal with. When you do this add more perolite to allow evaperation. With no heat source to trigger evap your plants will remain wet and eventualy stunt, or die. Also your miricle grow soil will have all the nutes these thing will need for now. In fact they have more than the desired amount. Time realese soils and nutrients are not recomended. You can use these, but in fact are hard to regulate. A soil as close to 0.0-0.0-0.0 is more preferable for clones and seedlings. Black Gold is a good organic bag potting soil ( add more perolite) npk values are 0.05-0.0-0.0 and has a wide spectrum of micro and secondary macro nutrients. This is available in most garden centers and landscape garden nursurys.
 

PRBudman

Member
LEd lights can be moved way down over the plant they emit less heat than florecent. Also, seperate those plants this will create more problems than you want to deal with. When you do this add more perolite to allow evaperation. With no heat source to trigger evap your plants will remain wet and eventualy stunt, or die. Also your miricle grow soil will have all the nutes these thing will need for now. In fact they have more than the desired amount. Time realese soils and nutrients are not recomended. You can use these, but in fact are hard to regulate. A soil as close to 0.0-0.0-0.0 is more preferable for clones and seedlings. Black Gold is a good organic bag potting soil ( add more perolite) npk values are 0.05-0.0-0.0 and has a wide spectrum of micro and secondary macro nutrients. This is available in most garden centers and landscape garden nursurys.
So would it be worth shocking the plant and replanting it in Black gold? And whats the best way to resolve the heat issue?
 

okcomputer

Active Member
What kind of LED is that? Unfortunately, theres still a lot of ripoff companies out there selling units that won't produce. I also grow with LED's and can definitely say I've never seen that much stretching
 

PRBudman

Member
Well i just recently installed the LED Lights about 2 Days ago i installed them. They were Outside counting on the sun. I think thats why they stretched. This light says its a full spectrum 620-660nm led grow light. I was thinking maybe with the LED now closer to the plants it'll reduce the stretch. I also went out and bought Plain Soil with no added nutes. so im planning to remove some top Miracle grow and replace it with regular top soil like Black Gold. Any other Suggestions?
 

bigfattone420

Well-Known Member
Well i just recently installed the LED Lights about 2 Days ago i installed them. They were Outside counting on the sun. I think thats why they stretched. This light says its a full spectrum 620-660nm led grow light. I was thinking maybe with the LED now closer to the plants it'll reduce the stretch. I also went out and bought Plain Soil with no added nutes. so im planning to remove some top Miracle grow and replace it with regular top soil like Black Gold. Any other Suggestions?
,,That's a start with the soil,movve the lights closer and your ties may be a bit tight on your plants give them room to wiggle,smile...peace....i]ll be checking out your grow...
 

bauty67

Well-Known Member
First time grower here and i also had a little problem with the plants reaching for the light and i am also using a led light but it is real simple move your light down no more than 6" above those plants and you might consider transplanting repot those stem so you have a normal height plant and keep the light right down on top of them. Good luck
 

problemsolver

Active Member
Use the led for clones and veg. For flowering go with something stronger or you'll get plenty of lanky stretchy growth. It's a valuable fixture, just not for flowering.
 

mikeyboy

Active Member
wow thats one skinny plant, but hopefully lowering the lights will sort it.

I cannot over exaggerate how brilliant perlite is.
Saved my arse when i was starting out plenty of times.
Main advantages are
1. helps with drainage, reducing the risk of over-watering (but not completely so don't become complacent)
2. Allows air circulation in the soil which is very important for good root development.

As for transplanting. Personally I transplanted at 12 days from sprout but how much shock the plant suffers is a combination of experience and luck of the draw, mine didn't suffer one bit.

im Sub'ed, be nice to know a lil more about that LED set. Been looking into getting one myself and be nice to hear a performance report from someone that hasn't already been exposed to the HPS vs CFL vs LED vs NATURAL war :P



P.S. wheres my penny?? ;P
 

melungeonman

Active Member
I have fiddled with led lighting since its's conception. Iv'e taken part in a one hundred person study on led lights for a particular light manafacturer, ( sorry Iv'e a non disclosure on who's), These are the facts about led.
The light we tested last year, proved marginal veg results and complete failure for blooming.They are simply not worth the high$ cost.
Led emmits very little heat.
Led is far cheaper to run in any cycle than any other type of lighting.
Led lights don't create enough of an arrid climate for your plants.
Led lights produce decent to marginal amounts of vegitation,(a plus).
NO.. led light has been develoveloped as of yet that creates the fall spectrum for blooming. many are claiming they have it, but no.
T5's willl bloom your plants better if used correctly, than led.
Almost, all led grow lights are in an experimental stage and have been for a while.

All the studies have proven so far is this, quality mh lights are best for indoor vegitation. Led vegges plants at the same rate as plantmax mh, the cheapest $35.00 mh on the market and no better.

All studies have proven so far that a quality hps lamp works best for indoor blooming of plants. Led bloom arrays not even in the same catagories.

Last but not least until the science catches up with the concept Led are not prefered by the pros.

I have a large array that was given to me by the manafacturer. Those people that built those one hundred lights built it with a pop in for blooming. you remove the veg pop in and replace it with the bloom, "great Idea".
Too bad the veg light doesnt perform even half as well as eyehortilux mh.
Too bad the bloom light doesn't bloom as well as t5s I for one have that light sitting in a box. It was a failure.
These led companys are going to market these lights to people that will try the next best thing before it is perfected to any degree.
They market them as the wonder lights of the Future, Every extra dollar they recieve from the consumer is going toward their own reserch. I for 1 will not pay for their reserch by purchasing on of these inferior lights.
 

melungeonman

Active Member
To avoid all plant shock when transplanting do it when the plant is dry, do not water first. do not handle the roots or molest them. The salts from your hands will damage the roots. Wash your hands to remove salts before doing a transplant.
have everything ready to go when you remove the plant from its original pot. Pot quickly without delay after removing the plant from its pot. Water imediatly and without over watering. replace under lights a soon as you do it. Most important, do not feed for a wek after transplant you will burn them. I repeat this process over 100 times a month and can't remember the last time I witnessed transplant shock, Keys are wash hands, remove gently,have everything ready to recieve plant. do rapidly, water imediatly.
 

mikeyboy

Active Member
All the studies have proven so far is this, quality mh lights are best for indoor vegitation. Led vegges plants at the same rate as plantmax mh, the cheapest $35.00 mh on the market and no better.

All studies have proven so far that a quality hps lamp works best for indoor blooming of plants. Led bloom arrays not even in the same catagories.

Last but not least until the science catches up with the concept Led are not prefered by the pros.
interesting points, have you any good sources for this info at hand? not trying to disprove anything you say or anything im just curious and want to do some more reading up on the matter.
 

PRBudman

Member
I have 2 Flouresecent Fixture with a F17T8/GL Color Temp: 7800k bulb each . Would these help if i put them on the sides inside the box? or should i just invest in some t5 bulbs and remove leds.
 
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