First Grow with 300W Advanced Platinum LED Grow Light

daveroller said:

Better get some pH Up and pH Down. You'll need to tinker with pH at times. I wouldn't recommend those home remedies if you have a big res, but I don't know really if they'd work or not. I would guess that they aren't strong enough to affect the pH in a big res.

I understand what a married guy needs to do sometimes, all too well. I'm just not sure I'd want cucumber plants sucking my expensive nutrients away from my pot plants. Good luck explaining that to her, though. Sometimes you have to make compromises against your better judgment.

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You make a good point that I hadn't consider the cost, I'm using Advanced Nutrients Sensi Grow A + B. The veggies would also serve as a diversion if someone happened to notice by grow, I would pull out tomatoes as a ruse, haha!

I picked up a Soler & Palau TD-100X In-line Exhaust Fan. Nice and quiet...hush, hush.

Day 16 - pH 6.4, nutes 400 ppm:


Roots developing nice and spikey:


Pictures with the bright 300W Advanced Platinum LED off:


How soon can I clone these ladies? Someone has to help me sort out which plants are white widow, northern lights and aurora as I knocked the mini-tote over when then where seedling and mixed them up!

Lookin good, Edge. pH is still a little high at 6.4. That's ok for soil, but too high for hydro.

Nice to see your little babies thriving in there. Was the first photo shot using your LED panel for lighting? It could be the camera's exposure, but the light looks kind of dim. Are all of the LEDs for vegetative growth turned on? How far away is the panel? I understand that you don't want the light to be too intense at this stage. Could there possibly be a 3rd setting for seedlings that you're using? (seedlings, vegetative, flower) I hope that you can make it brighter for full on vegetative growth.

Here's what the inside of my cabinet looked like around the same stage as you're at now:

daveroller said:

Lookin good, Edge. pH is still a little high at 6.4. That's ok for soil, but too high for hydro.

Nice to see your little babies thriving in there. Was the first photo shot using your LED panel for lighting? It could be the camera's exposure, but the light looks kind of dim. Are all of the LEDs for vegetative growth turned on? How far away is the panel? I understand that you don't want the light to be too intense at this stage. Could there possibly be a 3rd setting for seedlings that you're using? (seedlings, vegetative, flower) I hope that you can make it brighter for full on vegetative growth.

Here's what the inside of my cabinet looked like around the same stage as you're at now:

View attachment 2927550

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Thanks, dave. The plants are starting to take off. The first picture has only the veg switch blue lights on. When the veg and flower switches are both on, the 300W LED light is too bright and just drowns out the picture and the detail is missing. That's why I took the 3rd picture with the LED light off and just using the camera's flash. I got the pH down to 6.0 using the small packet that was included in my pH meter. There are no hydro strores where I live so I ordered some pH down from Amazon. I was going to get pool pH down but ordering from Amazon is so easy.

Edge7 said:

Thanks, dave. The plants are starting to take off. The first picture has only the veg switch blue lights on. When the veg and flower switches are both on, the 300W LED light is too bright and just drowns out the picture and the detail is missing. That's why I took the 3rd picture with the LED light off and just using the camera's flash. I got the pH down to 6.0 using the small packet that was included in my pH meter. There are no hydro strores where I live so I ordered some pH down from Amazon. I was going to get pool pH down but ordering from Amazon is so easy.

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Ok. I was just thinking that even for vegetative growth, the light looked dim, but it might just be an effect of your camera's automatic exposure. The pic that I posted was under the A51's veg setting as well. I hope your light is brighter than it looks in the photo. (I get some dark shots, too. It's just the camera sometimes.)

Anyway, I'd recommend ordering pH UP as well. You'll have to tinker with the pH up and down to get it in the right range, especially if you accidentally add too much pH DOWN, which happens to me all the time.

I don't think I'll need the pH up as I'm growing aeroponic. The nutes bring down pH and if I want to adjust up, I only have to add tap water which I run through a Brita filter.

Edge7 said:

I don't think I'll need the pH up as I'm growing aeroponic. The nutes bring down pH and if I want to adjust up, I only have to add tap water which I run through a Brita filter.

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If you use that method to adjust up, you'll be diluting your nutes in the process, so it's not very practical. pH UP is cheap. Don't be pennywise and pound foolish.

I've used both UP and DOWN a lot over the last 3 years of growing, probably more UP than DOWN. After adding nutes last night, my water's pH was down to around 5.30. Can you imagine adjusting that up to 5.8 pH by simply adding more water? That would severely dilute your nutes. If you have both pH UP and DOWN handy, you'll have peace of mind knowing that you can handle these situations when they arise. Just trying to help you avoid some problems.

I modified my sprayers manifold to 4 sprayers from the worthless 27 EZ Clone sprayers that I started out with. I have 4 more taped holes that I can uncover to extend the spray should I be successful in cloning the plants hopefully next week. I have to do research on keeping a mother cloner. The ladies are growing more vigorously as I increased my nutes to 500 ppm. The roots are extending into the water now:


As I had inadvertently mixed up my seedlings when I starting, I have to guess where my strains are. I'm guessing the the 3 on the left are Northern Lights, the 2 in the middle are White Widow and the 2 on the right are Aurora. Can someone confirm this?

Day 18, pH 6.1, nutes 500 ppm:

daveroller said:

If you use that method to adjust up, you'll be diluting your nutes in the process, so it's not very practical. pH UP is cheap. Don't be pennywise and pound foolish.

I've used both UP and DOWN a lot over the last 3 years of growing, probably more UP than DOWN. After adding nutes last night, my water's pH was down to around 5.30. Can you imagine adjusting that up to 5.8 pH by simply adding more water? That would severely dilute your nutes. If you have both pH UP and DOWN handy, you'll have peace of mind knowing that you can handle these situations when they arise. Just trying to help you avoid some problems.

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Thanks for the input, daveroller. I picked up a box of 20 Mule Team Borax for my pH up.

Day 22 ph 5.8, nutes 900 ppm

Plants growing fast but now I am getting a splotchy yellow specks along with an upward curl on my leaves! What is the cause of these symptoms? LEDs too close? Let me review what has transpired. First I added ph down to knock the ph 6.4 down to a 5.7 but I overshot and put the ladies under duress when the ph read 4.0! Of course it was 12 midnight so the plants had to suffer during the night. The next morning I got a box of 20 Mule Team Borax to kick up the pH, overshooting to pH 6.6. Damn rollercoaster, added some water and pH down to get it to 5.8. My nutes are reading 900 ppm. Is this the result of adding pH +/- powder chemicals?

I had been splashing water on my leaves to kick up the humidity as it has been settling at 32%. Could the water drops magnified the LED light to burn the leaves? I also had lowered the LED light from 26" to 20" the last 3 days, could that have heat stressed the plants? I raised it back to 26" today.

Or is this a cal-mag deficiency? Or am I getting nute burn? Some many variables in my first grow. Any input is appreciated.

I'm using a cycle timer of 45 seconds ON followed by 45 x 5 seconds OFF. I just turned it up to 45 x 2 seconds ON, followed by 45 x 4 seconds OFF. Maybe it wasn't getting enough water/nutes. My humidity has always been running in the low 30s, could this cause the cupping and splotchy yellow rust specks?

Edge7 said:

Day 22 ph 5.8, nutes 900 ppm

Plants growing fast but now I am getting a splotchy yellow specks along with an upward curl on my leaves! What is the cause of these symptoms? LEDs too close? Let me review what has transpired. First I added ph down to knock the ph 6.4 down to a 5.7 but I overshot and put the ladies under duress when the ph read 4.0! Of course it was 12 midnight so the plants had to suffer during the night. The next morning I got a box of 20 Mule Team Borax to kick up the pH, overshooting to pH 6.6. Damn rollercoaster, added some water and pH down to get it to 5.8. My nutes are reading 900 ppm. Is this the result of adding pH +/- powder chemicals?

I had been splashing water on my leaves to kick up the humidity as it has been settling at 32%. Could the water drops magnified the LED light to burn the leaves? I also had lowered the LED light from 26" to 20" the last 3 days, could that have heat stressed the plants? I raised it back to 26" today.

Or is this a cal-mag deficiency? Or am I getting nute burn? Some many variables in my first grow. Any input is appreciated.

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Edge, 900ppm is too much. I have never used "LP Aeroponics," so I can't speak to any ppm flux's between dwc and aero. (SuperStoner over in the dwc sub forum does both)

These plants are too small for that kind of power, you need to back it down. Start with a fresh res of water. Your root system isnt "established" yet so you wont have to flush forever, but a good 3-4 days of straight RO before you dose with any other nutes would help pull out the excess nutes in their system.

Look into Osmostic Pressure, ill do some digging and see if I didn't bookmark a good read.

Let em breathe, then after you flush dose them low <500ppm, especially from seeds. (personally).

Your massive ph swings are a big deal, but you're talking short period lockouts. Lockouts all together aren't good- but at least you knew it was happening.

But I think the high ppms locking out everything. even H20. Thats why your leaves are curling, (not the light.) There is a relationship, too fuzzy to explain in depth- one of those things you just remember subconsciously. But the roots have a certain amount of nutrients in their system- and the H20/nutrients/bacteria/O2 are pulled in as they need more to feed. Well, when you OVER feed, they try to release the stuff they're not using- and if the nutes surrounding the roots trying to release the excess, they drown, starve, and dry out my friend...

FLUSH. they will green back up.

Thanks for your input, Scotch, will do.

I believe that Scotch is right, Edge. I've done the same thing more times than I'd like to admit. Then it's time to flush the roots like Scotch said and start feeding with a lower ppm. Are you already adding Cal/Mag? When my plant was the size of yours I started adding about 2 ml per gallon and now I'm putting in 4 ml per gallon. It's probably necessary for high-potency plants like ours.

But what happened here doesn't look to me like a simple Cal/Mag deficiency. If you look in my journal back to page 5, in fact this post <here>, you'll see what Cal/Mag deficiency looks like. The spots are darker than yours and they have even darker borders.

I had never increased my nutes above 700 ppm. I'm thinking that the 900 ppm reading was affected by the powdered pH down, then up and then down again chemicals that I added. Although I do think I had a nute lock out situation when my pH dropped to 4.0 for 7 hours before i could rescue it with pH up. I diluted my reservoir adding 40% more tap water which backed my nutes reading to 750 ppm but it has crept up to 800 ppm. I gather that my ladies are taking in my water and less nutes if it is creeping up in the reading. The new growth looks normal. Anyways, the pH rollercoaster was stressful to the plants and me. I think I may start cloning the taller ones soon. I'm thinking about adding another 30" x 18" x 35" mother and clone tent.

Day 25

I haven't added any nutes in the last 7 days and still my ppm inches up to 850 with pH 5.8.

Day 27 - I have taken my first clones from the lower branches:


Should I be topping now?

I would advise against you taking any more clones of those severely stressed girls......and don't top or touch them!!! You need to get them back to health first grower, they are in trouble IMO.

Those PPM's are still way too high, and your locking out some macro/micronutrients^^^ with your ph instability, which needs to be addressed asap.

make sure your pen is accurate!!!! good luck and be safe

PSUAGRO. said:

I would advise against you taking any more clones of those severely stressed girls......and don't top or touch them!!! You need to get them back to health first grower, they are in trouble IMO.

Those PPM's are still way too high, and your locking out some macro/micronutrients^^^ with your ph instability, which needs to be addressed asap.

make sure your pen is accurate!!!! good luck and be safe

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Yeah, I had some issues but the new growth looks better so I'm hoping it's behind me at this juncture. Time will tell.

are you sure your ph meter is working? when have you calibrated last time? are the roots healthy?

I have never calibrated the pH meter, just bought it off Amazon. I just check my tap water is pH 7.3, 197 ppm. Brita filtered tap water is pH 6.3, 165 ppm. I initially stcked the reservoir with Brita filtered water. When I had the pH 4.0 dive lockout, I diluted the reservoir probably 65% with tap water. Roots are a light tan color but no slime or smell. Am I having an oxygen problem? As a precaution, i just change my aeroponic water cycle to 1 unit on, 5 units off to 1 unit on, 7 units off. Each unit is 45 seconds.