1600w grow (1000w DE & 600w SE)

kratos015

Well-Known Member
What's up guys? Been busy these last few months here and just wanted to show you all what I've been up to! Still in the same room, but have been experiencing mediocre results due to a variety of things I've done. The main issue being a lack of a mother/veg room and a good source of clones, both of which I've since taken care of! I've had plenty of other issues I've run into, which I'll list off in a later post to hopefully help others avoid my mishaps. Just wanting to show where I'm at now.

I only have a couple of photos of the 1000w DE side of the room, the first photo was taken on the 7th and thte next one on the 22nd.

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I've been fighting a calcium salt build up from my well water, so I'm not quite getting the most optimal growth but I'm still rather pleased with what I've got thus far. I still have a couple of weeks until I trigger flower, so I'm hopeful that my change in water will help me get more optimal results.

When I get more time, I'll post more photos (including the 600w SE side) and a bit more about my process thus far. Hope you guys stick around, as always any constructive advice/comments are always welcome and appreciated.
 

nobighurry

Well-Known Member
What's up guys? Been busy these last few months here and just wanted to show you all what I've been up to! Still in the same room, but have been experiencing mediocre results due to a variety of things I've done. The main issue being a lack of a mother/veg room and a good source of clones, both of which I've since taken care of! I've had plenty of other issues I've run into, which I'll list off in a later post to hopefully help others avoid my mishaps. Just wanting to show where I'm at now.

I only have a couple of photos of the 1000w DE side of the room, the first photo was taken on the 7th and thte next one on the 22nd.

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I've been fighting a calcium salt build up from my well water, so I'm not quite getting the most optimal growth but I'm still rather pleased with what I've got thus far. I still have a couple of weeks until I trigger flower, so I'm hopeful that my change in water will help me get more optimal results.

When I get more time, I'll post more photos (including the 600w SE side) and a bit more about my process thus far. Hope you guys stick around, as always any constructive advice/comments are always welcome and appreciated.
I have the same issue with my well water, I now mix it 50/50 with rain water and things have really improved....
 

kratos015

Well-Known Member
I have the same issue with my well water, I now mix it 50/50 with rain water and things have really improved....
Really now? How interesting. What issues were you experiencing by chance and how quickly did you notice changes for the better?

My soil must be decent as the symptoms aren't quite as severe as they could be. Curled/deformed growth, necrosis, leaf tips becoming crunchy, pH lockout (showing Mg, P deficiencies) and mediocre growth.

I can't find info on my well water, only the city water (small ass town) so all I could go off of was a TDS meter, pH drops, and what I can see. TDS read 420-440ppm, pH of my well water hovers from 8-8.5, and every single one of my appliances has calcium build up. Unfortunately, during my last grow I only considered the calcium build up and nothing else, so I assumed to issue was due to excess calcium at first and acted accordingly. Of course, I was wrong and my last grow's yields were a reflection of such. Upon doing more reading though, it finally hit me that the calcium was in fact the issue but not for the reasons I had thought. Any calcium/minerals in my water that the plant doesn't uptake inevitably gets tangled up in my soil in the form of the same salt build up you see on faucets and such. So, not only are my roots exposed to excess salts from the calcium build up but the calcium build up is essentially acting like excess dolomite lime and is raising my soil pH more than it should be.

I'm embarrassed to admit how long it took for me to realize I have an issue with excess salts, but better late than never. I've got a handful of 5 gallon jugs I'll be filling up when I'm able to get a lift to the store, it's looking like I'm going to have to use that water from now on. I may be able to get away with diluting it with some of my well water but probably not much. Just glad I discovered this before I triggered flower.
 

nobighurry

Well-Known Member
Don't feel bad it took me a couple weeks into flowering on the second grow, first grow I started getting mag lockout 2nd week of flowering i just figured my soil blend/cook was off a bit but when it started again 2 weeks after the flip I knew to look elsewhere I sent a water sample into a local lab ($40) it confirmed the high cal. And 7.5 ph. But during the wait for lab results I had already started blending my water 40/60 well/rain and things improved, I now use a 50/50 blend, melted snow all winter which worked the same...you make a great point Happy roots are key to fruitful plants, after awhile you will even notice when you have just a few fungus gnat larvae around the roots (before you see fliers) you will see more flaccid leaves plants just seem off a little..... Most important part is you did figure it out before flipping it's easier to play catchup during veg, it took me a week to sq mine up during flower, might check the internet for a water lab in your area a basic test here is $20 I went for a more intense testing sure helped me... Happy growing
 

kratos015

Well-Known Member
Don't feel bad it took me a couple weeks into flowering on the second grow, first grow I started getting mag lockout 2nd week of flowering i just figured my soil blend/cook was off a bit but when it started again 2 weeks after the flip I knew to look elsewhere I sent a water sample into a local lab ($40) it confirmed the high cal. And 7.5 ph. But during the wait for lab results I had already started blending my water 40/60 well/rain and things improved, I now use a 50/50 blend, melted snow all winter which worked the same...you make a great point Happy roots are key to fruitful plants, after awhile you will even notice when you have just a few fungus gnat larvae around the roots (before you see fliers) you will see more flaccid leaves plants just seem off a little..... Most important part is you did figure it out before flipping it's easier to play catchup during veg, it took me a week to sq mine up during flower, might check the internet for a water lab in your area a basic test here is $20 I went for a more intense testing sure helped me... Happy growing
What a coincidence, that's pretty much exactly what happened to me. Mg deficiencies in my last flower and various issues leading me down a rabbit hole. Plants this time looked decent enough, but I knew they should have been doing better. Finally started filling up water jugs at the local water machines with RO water and things have quickly turned around. Fortunately I am in fact still in veg, my last harvest was quick lackluster because I had the same problems, so I made sure not to flower until the issue was resolved. Sucks to have to essentially waste money/electricity because of stunted growth, but it's much better than a lousy harvest like my last one.

Another thing I realized is this current grow is with clones, not seeds. As a result I never had root plugs like I do now with the clones, happened to notice the same scaling on my root plugs that my faucets get. Live and learn I suppose. I'll post photos as soon as time allows, they need to be re-sized due to my crap upload speeds.
 

kratos015

Well-Known Member
What's up guys? Finally got some time so now I'm gonna start uploading photos, I'm over the limit of 10 so I'm gonna divide this up into two separate posts. Let's see how long it takes for them to upload :P
 

kratos015

Well-Known Member
So, this is the right side of my shed. I've got 6 plants surrounding a 600 watt bulb dialed down to 400 watts.



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The bulb wasn't always vertical like this, I did this about two weeks ago and had a few reasons for doing so.

I was looking at past grows in hindsight and realized that I was always using the same method of growing, no matter what the strain. Trying to do Scrog and/or christmas tree single cola grows for no other reason than because I wanted to do them, not because they were optimal. So when I first bought all of these clones and they started off in the veg tent I observed their growth patterns. The AK Skunk and Jack the Ripper plants weren't really doing too much and were growing like single cola dominant strains. The Mendo Purps however is just a monster and grows in every which way, growing as tall as the other strains but bushing equally as much. With this in mind, I decided that I would grow the 3 Mendo Purps in 25g pots with the goal of filling a 5x6 screen underneath a 1000w DE bulb. The 2 AK Skunks and 2 Jack the Ripper plants would be grown normally underneath a horizontal 600 watt light.

When everything got into the tent, the AKs and JTRs were growing upward a little too fast so I dimmed the light down to 250w to slow growth while waiting on the screen to fill out more on the other side of the room.

As for why I decided to go vert? I was noticing the lack of uniform growth (obviously) due to the fact I'm running two different strains underneath one light. From now on, my new rule is going to be one strain per light. Period. Nearly impossible to get dialed in otherwise.

So, I noticed that and toyed around with the idea of vertical growing but was a bit intimidated because I've never done so before. However I just could not stop thinking about Heath Robinson (google his vert grows if you haven't already, amazing) and even saw grow journals of first timers attempting this and getting insane yields.

From what I'm seeing so far though, vertical growing very well may end up being something I look into adopting permanently. You use SO much more of the light growing vertically as opposed to horizontally. If I add another vertical bulb in the middle of those plants and let them grow another foot before I flower then I have a feeling I'm going to be one happy camper come harvest.

The original plan was to get another 1000w DE and throw those 4 plants (and my 2 OG Ghost Train Haze seedlings) underneath it. The DE lights are supposed to yield like mad because they have better spectrum and canopy penetration, as well as a wider footprint. My SCROG is a 5x6 and the DE lights all of it. Quite eager to see how it yields, but I'm more eager to see the results of the vertical side. I have a feeling that after I see what happens with growing vertically I won't go back. People like Heath Robinson are pulling 2lb+ from 600 watt lights growing vertically. This mad man yielded over 3 lbs under a single 600w light growing Critical +.

You take the flaw of the SE HID light and use it to your advantage. An HID will only penetrate 2-3 feet horizontally right? It will penetrate that same amount vertically too, the difference is that instead of having plants underneath the light they are surrounding it instead. Take a look at this thread for more information.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=127881

So this grow is pretty much going to be a comparison grow to see how both of these yield for me. Can't wait to see what happens as I'm still not even in flower yet :D
 

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kratos015

Well-Known Member
And here's the 1000w DE side of the room. The first set of photos were from a week ago.

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and then a week later (taken yesterday)

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Really wishing I had 4 of these instead of 3, taking quite a while for them to fill the screen up and this would have gone much better/faster if I had 4 instead of 3. All I had access to, oh well.

Finally got my own clone/mother room going so I won't have to worry about this crap any more. Being limited in terms of clones/seeds sucks :P

I'm going to flower in another week or two, but I've got some changes to make first.

I have so many tops poking through my screen now that it's getting tough to keep them all down, so it's becoming more difficult to actually get the screen filled up. Within another week or so I'm sure the backside of the screen will be full, but the front part will still have some space.

So I'm going to move my vertical light closer to the 1000w DE, that way the AK Skunks can take advantage of the vert 600w as well as some of the light coming from the 1000w DE and hopefully fill up the rest of the screen. Wanting the screen to be full with the canopy at 6-8 inches before I flower, but we'll see what happens.
 

Seamuis

Member
@kratos015 this may be a dumb question, but why not prune the growth below your trellis while still in veg, that should redirect the energy to the tops you want to focus your time, energy and nutrients on?
 

kratos015

Well-Known Member
Looking good kratos are you running the same soil from last round?
Hey thanks man! And yeah, same soil from my first run over a year ago in fact! 25g pots are the same No-till soil from over a year ago now, the other pots are the remaining 25g pots I had that were dumped, re-amended, then repotted into smaller containers. Loving how simple it is and that I don't have to get rid of a ton of soil/medium all the time now.


@kratos015 this may be a dumb question, but why not prune the growth below your trellis while still in veg, that should redirect the energy to the tops you want to focus your time, energy and nutrients on?
No dumb question at all my good man! Since I had to re-size the photo, the quality just likely isn't showing everything that's going on down below. All I have below the screen are in fact only the big fan leaves, only branches were pruned but I leave the fan leaves alone. A branch/bud site will definitely suffer underneath a canopy and should 100% be plucked for the exact reasons you described.

The fan leaves, however should be left alone. Even underneath the canopy, the fan leaves still get enough light to continue to act as solar panels for your plant. Less leaves=less photosynthesis=less everything. I've found this one out the hard way. Indoors, pruning branches that don't get light is a good thing. In fact, it's recommended because those buds are most likely to hermie if things go wrong because they're already stressed from a lack of light. Leaves should never be touched or you will lose yields, guaranteed.
 

kratos015

Well-Known Member
subbed up my man. bongsmilie looking good!
Woah thanks man, much appreciated!

Came in to this today about 20 minutes ago.

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and this is after bending and tucking as best as I can.


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I may have to start 12/12 here within the week as things are quickly becoming quite the cluster fuck. You can even see a few branches that I've actually had to train underneath the frame of the screen :P

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Finally got some clones going too! If you aren't using aloe for root gel, I highly recommend it. Aloe is all you need for cloning, and provides me with the best looking roots in the fastest amount of time. Just dip your clone into aloe vera squeezed from a leaf and dip into a rapid rooter/rockwool cube that's been sitting in a water/aloe vera mixture for 12-24 hours and proceed as normal. You'll be thanked with some very healthy looking roots, without the need for cloning gel.

You can also dilute the aloe at a 20:1 ratio for every gallon you make. Makes for a fine weekly root drench, if it helps clones root then imagine what it does to a well established root mass! Just make sure it's diluted well, you don't want any gel in there as it can actually suffocate roots if it builds up on them. Like most things in organics, a little goes a long way.

I've got myself 4 Mendo Purp clones now, so I'll likely just stick those underneath the screen to finish filling it out. Would like to have the screen 100% full with 6-8 inch tall vertical growth before triggering flower if possible.

Thanks for dropping in guys.
 

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
Woah thanks man, much appreciated!

Came in to this today about 20 minutes ago.

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and this is after bending and tucking as best as I can.


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I may have to start 12/12 here within the week as things are quickly becoming quite the cluster fuck. You can even see a few branches that I've actually had to train underneath the frame of the screen :P

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Finally got some clones going too! If you aren't using aloe for root gel, I highly recommend it. Aloe is all you need for cloning, and provides me with the best looking roots in the fastest amount of time. Just dip your clone into aloe vera squeezed from a leaf and dip into a rapid rooter/rockwool cube that's been sitting in a water/aloe vera mixture for 12-24 hours and proceed as normal. You'll be thanked with some very healthy looking roots, without the need for cloning gel.

You can also dilute the aloe at a 20:1 ratio for every gallon you make. Makes for a fine weekly root drench, if it helps clones root then imagine what it does to a well established root mass! Just make sure it's diluted well, you don't want any gel in there as it can actually suffocate roots if it builds up on them. Like most things in organics, a little goes a long way.

I've got myself 4 Mendo Purp clones now, so I'll likely just stick those underneath the screen to finish filling it out. Would like to have the screen 100% full with 6-8 inch tall vertical growth before triggering flower if possible.

Thanks for dropping in guys.
looks good man. beautiful scrog with those three. definitely putting good use to the space. I've also used aloe for cloning (though i have a bottle of clonex i'm finishing off to get my 20$ out of it LOL), but will start using aloe once it runs out :) . I also do the occasional root drench with it, not very often though. it's funny though, i used to see HUGE response to the aloe waterings with hard/heavy praying effect, and now when I do it... there doesn't seem to be as drastic of a change so I just kinda stopped doing it all together. I mean plants are already praying pretty well... so maybe that's why i'm not seeing the diff. but i have a couple pics in my thread of plants that were nearly vertical leaves after an aloe watering lol. it was crazy!

what is the footprint of your trellis? it looks big!
 

kratos015

Well-Known Member
looks good man. beautiful scrog with those three. definitely putting good use to the space. I've also used aloe for cloning (though i have a bottle of clonex i'm finishing off to get my 20$ out of it LOL), but will start using aloe once it runs out :) . I also do the occasional root drench with it, not very often though. it's funny though, i used to see HUGE response to the aloe waterings with hard/heavy praying effect, and now when I do it... there doesn't seem to be as drastic of a change so I just kinda stopped doing it all together. I mean plants are already praying pretty well... so maybe that's why i'm not seeing the diff. but i have a couple pics in my thread of plants that were nearly vertical leaves after an aloe watering lol. it was crazy!

what is the footprint of your trellis? it looks big!
Thanks a bunch my man! I went with a 5x6 screen because I used this light the last run and noticed that it was covering that footprint quite effectively. My Mendo Purp plants looked like the only ones that would respond well to topping/scrogging and it would seem I was correct. Although, I have a ridiculous amount of tops pushing through the screen now that it's becoming impossible to actually tie everything down. The plant just focuses on all of the new tops that I can't tuck at this point, so I'm going to have to end up flowering soon.

I'm trying to take as much advantage of my DE's footprint as I can, that's why I was hoping to not only fill the screen but let them grow upward a little before flower. It is unbelievable how bright this damn light is, and this is with it nearly on the ceiling. I'll be making the screen shorter the next time I do this, would rather have the extra 1/2 foot of buds than wood ;)

All that being said, I have a feeling vertical is going to impress me a lot. If it works out as well as it looks like it's going to, I may do this primarily. Would be awesome to have a combination of hanging bulbs and wall mounted LED strips.
 

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
Thanks a bunch my man! I went with a 5x6 screen because I used this light the last run and noticed that it was covering that footprint quite effectively. My Mendo Purp plants looked like the only ones that would respond well to topping/scrogging and it would seem I was correct. Although, I have a ridiculous amount of tops pushing through the screen now that it's becoming impossible to actually tie everything down. The plant just focuses on all of the new tops that I can't tuck at this point, so I'm going to have to end up flowering soon.

I'm trying to take as much advantage of my DE's footprint as I can, that's why I was hoping to not only fill the screen but let them grow upward a little before flower. It is unbelievable how bright this damn light is, and this is with it nearly on the ceiling. I'll be making the screen shorter the next time I do this, would rather have the extra 1/2 foot of buds than wood ;)

All that being said, I have a feeling vertical is going to impress me a lot. If it works out as well as it looks like it's going to, I may do this primarily. Would be awesome to have a combination of hanging bulbs and wall mounted LED strips.
haha better plan on a topdress for all that mass. those plants are gonna eat through those amendments like no other. you have a lot of bud sites there! Can't wait to see those ladies around week 6 :)
 

kratos015

Well-Known Member
haha better plan on a topdress for all that mass. those plants are gonna eat through those amendments like no other. you have a lot of bud sites there! Can't wait to see those ladies around week 6 :)
Funny you should mention that, they'll be here tomorrow! :D Got some crustacean meal coming in and i'll be top dressing with that and top dressing with a good amount of worm castings. Also gonna make an effort to grab some coconut water for them too as I notice a huge difference in node spacing and production when I feed with it. The last plants I had in these containers weren't even half this size when I was forced to flower and they yielded 8-10oz even with the issues I had with my water and that was without the DE. I'm quite excited to see what happens. :D
 

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
Funny you should mention that, they'll be here tomorrow! :D Got some crustacean meal coming in and i'll be top dressing with that and top dressing with a good amount of worm castings. Also gonna make an effort to grab some coconut water for them too as I notice a huge difference in node spacing and production when I feed with it. The last plants I had in these containers weren't even half this size when I was forced to flower and they yielded 8-10oz even with the issues I had with my water and that was without the DE. I'm quite excited to see what happens. :D
makes sense on the coconut water because it promotes meristematic growth... so it should make them go bonkers. Maybe i'll start working that into my first 3 weeks of flowering... do a once a week coconut watering to promote meristem growth. maybe i'll do a side by side with the two that I just put in and see if I notice a difference between them.
 

kratos015

Well-Known Member
Got another update for you guys, finally got around to taking care of some things I've been meaning to get around to for the last week. Been spending more time sleeping on my days off lately because I'm just exhausted from the extra shifts/lack of time off. Hard to want to spend 2-3 hours working after you get off work. I only had a 4 hour day today, so I had plenty of energy left over to get everything handled. As the photos will show, I moved my vertical light closer to the DE so that the AK Skunk plants (the 2 3ft plants closest to the frame of my Scrog) could make use of the light that is currently being unused as a result of the empty space in my screen. I switched my bulbs over to HPS, but I'm still on 18/6 until tomorrow when I decide on what I want my 12/12 cycle to be. Looking like 6:30-6:30, but I'm still contemplating it. Moving the light also required that I move my wall fan. I'll buy the infamous Honeywell fan for my vertical grow eventually, if it's something I decide to even pursue after this grow, but for now this grow is pretty much about me making due with what it is I already have. Aside from my electric bill, my top dress, and EWC, I haven't spent a dime. Considering that the light is completely bare, I'm shocked at how cool it is on that side of the room. The AC is closest to the Scrog side of my shed, yet I can feel the cool air from even in that corner. Must have my fans placed properly if that's the case. I just top dressed with Fox Farm's Marine Cuisine tonight and will be top dressing with the EWC once they arrive, it's a few weeks overdue. I'm going to start uploading photos and commenting on them as necessary.

And while I have vertical growing fresh on my mind, I'm hopeful that there are some experienced vertical growers that may be happening to be browsing my thread? If so, please comment and let me know what you think. This is my first vert grow, and although I feel like things look good and I'm quite stoked with my results thus far, I also know that I'm an amateur at this and will never be too good to hear advice from someone more seasoned than me.
 

kratos015

Well-Known Member
A photo of the whole room

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Pictures of the vert side

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AK Skunk (both 3 ft tall)

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Jack the Ripper (both 2ft tall)

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Even with the lights dimmed, things have been growing a bit too much on this side. In fact, I'd be pretty fucked if I wasn't doing a vertical grow with these plants. That's actually a large part of the reason I decided to go with vertical actually, I had a feeling these would get too tall before I was going to be ready to flower the SCROG. This is looking pretty impressive so far though, I didn't even think to measure how wide these plants are, but these are starting to look like they'll become monsters once I flip to 12/12. I'm going to need another light in the middle with how tall I see these ladies getting. I have some pretty high hopes for the vert side of the room, it's pretty amazing even compared to my SCROG it's ridiculous. We'll see what happens!

As for what those tiny plants are? Those are the OG Ghost Train Haze #1 seedlings I started a month after I got the clones. I knew they wouldn't be big enough to give me a substantial harvest, but my main goal was getting them large enough to take clones from them. On top of that, they appear to be different phenotypes. The one seems like it's going to put out a handful of indica golfballs and the other seems like it's taking more after the Nevil's Wreck. I'm probably not going to grow the JTR or AK Skunk again, not because they're bad, but I know the OG Ghost is going to be so good that I likely won't even want those strains anymore. The Mendo Purps is going to be a keeper though, the thing just grows like mad and you can't fuck it up. I got some freebie Grape OX seeds when I ordered the GTH#1 that i haven't popped yet, but knowing Rare Dankness the Grape OX will likely replace the Mendo in my garden once I get a mother of it going. On to the SCROG side..
 
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