Pro Grow LED Run #1, Super Cali Haze, Onyx, Blackbriar, and Blue Diesel

just updated my journal with pics... any feed back is welcome.

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/480806-led-auto-not.html#post6584096

I am a imaging professional by trade. I have to say the mylar is much more reflective then white paint. White paint reflects about 50% of the light where mylar does 95% of the light. I have heard argument on other forums that say dimpled mylar is better because it scatters light better. I am going to try that in my next cab. my 2¢ anyways...

yeah the mylar is good, I wasn't hitting on all cylinders when I dumped on it earlier. I've got mine set up with duct tape holding it to the wall so the fan kinda moves it around enough to change the angles its reflecting back on my girls. I'm still going to do a tent one of these days. Perhaps a X-mas present to myself. We'll see. Gonna snap some pics today or tomorrow. Things are starting to bloom up nice on the caramel.

Sup hoss? Just wanted to offer some friendly advice about using duct tape to hold up the mylar...thats exactly how I did it too my first time...i taped the shit out of all the edges to my closet walls. I used like a whole roll of tape. But the tape kept coming unstuck after a while. After a few months of retaping, I finally stuck some push pins in through and haven't had to mess with tape since. Makes putting up and taking down soooo much easier. It was definitely a "doh!" moment!

Push pins it is then. Thanks man.

Some pics. The sweet caramel is the oldest and largest, I'm thinking she will be a good yield just like the last caramel I grew. Also from sweet seeds is the blackjack, the lanky one with 3 branches each node.

The super sativa is kinda short and bushy for what I expected from a "sativa" autoflower. We'll have to wait for the smoke to see if Big Buddah managed to create a true sativa auto, which from what I gather is a rather difficult process.

The baby is the la bella afrodita from delicious seeds. She's growing well but will be the runt out of this run. She's already shown sex, which was much earlier than the others this run. If you haven't grown autos this basically means she won't get as large as the caramel for sure but will probably still be a good producer given the branching thus far. This could be my fault - I watered heavily before going out of town on business and I think I may have given her a tad of root rot. I put a dehumidifier next to her for a couple days and waited until she was totally dry before watering again. This usually clears up mild cases.

All in all, things are going pretty well. Constructive comments, criticisms, and questions always welcome!

I agree with puff. I helped a friend put up mylar for his grow before and pins in the wall are much easier, especially in corners. I finally just got around to ordering a tent last week myself, I feel like it's one of the best investments I've made for growing (several less genius purchases before this).

Also, that caramel is looking great man! How big is she compared to the last one you grew and does it seem like a consistent strain so far?

Also managed to bleach the top of the caramel just a little bit. Kinda looks like a mg def but its not, just left the lights too close when I was out of town. I've since moved them back to 10 inches and the problem went away.

KawiZZR said:

I agree with puff. I helped a friend put up mylar for his grow before and pins in the wall are much easier, especially in corners. I finally just got around to ordering a tent last week myself, I feel like it's one of the best investments I've made for growing (several less genius purchases before this).

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Yeah the more I think about it the more I'm thinking santa is going to bring me a tent for X-mas. Been there on some less than genius purchases man. To illustrate here is one of my bonehead moves before I did some reseach, they almost turned me off to using leds after I lost an entire crop (4 plants). They wound up being comically tiny (funny if you weren't me).

http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-Four-Pack---LED-Spotlight-Bulb-TriBand-Spectrum.asp

168 leds producing a whopping total of 16 watts of output (.1 watt per diode as opposed to the 3w diodes I run now) - I should have seen that coming. Anyway that was $100 bucks against the wall. I'm tempted to start a don't buy shitty leds thread with examples of bogus led lights from around the web, cause there certainly are plenty. I'm just pretty sure it would get trolled and flamed to no end.

hoss12781 said:

Also managed to bleach the top of the caramel just a little bit. Kinda looks like a mg def but its not, just left the lights too close when I was out of town. I've since moved them back to 10 inches and the problem went away.

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Bleaching tends to happen from time to time when using LED. I have bleached a few tops before. Still good smoke, if not more potent.

I'm inclined to agree with you on this Lucky. That's actually how I created the hash tip pictured on page 20. I let the plant grow really close to the glass the last 2-3 weeks. I've since been playing around with blasting the crap out of my last plant (of the four on any given run) with almost all the leds, it seems to put it in freak out mode, does bleach a little bit but brings out the funk.

Wouldn't do this with anything that wasn't at least two weeks away from chopping, but this guy has a good point.

KawiZZR said:

Also, that caramel is looking great man! How big is she compared to the last one you grew and does it seem like a consistent strain so far?

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The caramel is a fantastic auto strain. I only ordered a 3 pack of fem seeds to try them out but will be re-ordering. It is highly stable, of the 3 I grew two, I traded one of them to my buddy for the fem santa seed I had in my last run. All 3 have been monster autos. Although this one isn't done yet its safe to say it, like the other two will easily pull one oz plus.

This one is slightly bigger than the last one I grew. The smoke is as advertised as well. Tastes kinda like a carmel latte. I really can't talk this strain up enough.

hoss12781 said:

The caramel is a fantastic auto strain. I only ordered a 3 pack of fem seeds to try them out but will be re-ordering. It is highly stable, of the 3 I grew two, I traded one of them to my buddy for the fem santa seed I had in my last run. All 3 have been monster autos. Although this one isn't done yet its safe to say it, like the other two will easily pull one oz plus.

This one is slightly bigger than the last one I grew. The smoke is as advertised as well. Tastes kinda like a carmel latte. I really can't talk this strain up enough.

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Sounds like I know what I'll be getting myself for x-mas now. Going back to things we've bought that we shouldn't have, at least you ended up with a few cool looking lights to play around with. I ordered this http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-A-GrowBright-4in-Inline-Fan-&-Carbon-Filter-Combo.asp last year and it was horrible. In a good sized cab it sounded like a miniature jet engine but barely moved enough air to keep a 150w hps under 90F. And as for the carbon filter, I found that pc fans and dryer sheets worked better. A friend of mine just recently got some ONA and that stuff is incredible! Next time I start flowering I'll be getting some, seems like the least effort for the most benefit.

Ona gel is the tits, I use dryer sheets as well on the intake that recycles the air from my grow room back into the rest of my house. Even though I was supremely upset with the shit leds they sold me two years ago - and still have on the market for others to buy - I hate to crap on HTG cause they're hps lights are actually pretty good. Some of their products are and some aren't. Kind of like Worms Way. I think you get that with any mega retailer.

Speaking of throw backs and old crap that doesn't work well - a pic of my original set up I found on my old PC (a lemon g photoperiod plant). Old school crappy 30w floro tubes. Bought a lot of these a couple years back before I went to HPS and CFL.

https://www.cornells.com/products/20w-fluorescent-light-stick-loa%7C824554.html

Similar to these more or less I think mine were from "lights of america". They sucked big time - took 6 months to grow 2 oz on one photoperiod plant. After I took a 5 year hiatus from growing when I graduated college and went to get back into it I figured I'd just go to home depot and pick up some floros. In retrospect spent way too much on this crap before I switched to HPS and spent more $, then led and spent more $. Growing is pretty freaking addictive, good thing I'm at the point now where my hobby has more than paid for all the money spent tweaking of my grow set up.

KawiZZR said:

Sounds like I know what I'll be getting myself for x-mas now. Going back to things we've bought that we shouldn't have, at least you ended up with a few cool looking lights to play around with. I ordered this http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-A-GrowBright-4in-Inline-Fan-&-Carbon-Filter-Combo.asp last year and it was horrible. In a good sized cab it sounded like a miniature jet engine but barely moved enough air to keep a 150w hps under 90F. And as for the carbon filter, I found that pc fans and dryer sheets worked better. A friend of mine just recently got some ONA and that stuff is incredible! Next time I start flowering I'll be getting some, seems like the least effort for the most benefit.

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I actually still have the old screw in HTG leds. I used them to make my front porch look scary on halloween. That's about all they're good for.

@ KawiZZR - if you're strain shopping I thought I should mention - as much as I love the Sweet Caramel from Sweet Seeds and suspect their Black Jack (growing right now) will be awesome I would strongly suggest staying away from their "Fast Bud #1" auto strain. Couldn't remember if we talked about this before but it wasn't "fast" as described and the bud was def not on par with some of the other auto strains I've grown. Reminded me of some Joint Dr. Original Lowryder - which sucked big time but should be given props as it was the first auto strain and the building block for most of the kick ass autos we have available today.

@hoss - Hey the old fluoro tubes still have their uses, a single T8 is enough to start seeds and root clones. I'm not meaning to shit on HTG at all, some of the stuff I've gotten from them was spot on, I just won't be going generic for any grow essentials from now on. Haha I just added up how much I've dropped on grow stuff and it's a good bit. Since I started I've had 5 harvests, but have barely yielded enough to break even on what I spent for all the crap. It's kinda sad, but now that I'm using LEDs and got a tent the only things I'll be buying any more are ONA, soil/perlite, and seeds if I want more options.

won't have to replace a bulb for at least the next three years, probably more than that.

hoss12781 said:

won't have to replace a bulb for at least the next three years, probably more than that.

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Only three? I'm thinking at least 5 years, by then the cost hopefully will be down to around half what it is now.

probably more like 6, that's what I figured with the way I'm running mine. At 23 hours a day X 365 = 8395 hours a year that my lights are on. If the 50,000 burn time holds true I'm looking at a total of 6 years. I was just thinking in terms of warranty, the hydro huts carry a 3 year mfg warranty. Are the haight solid states you're running a 1,3, or 5 year warranty? Either way, at least 3 years, probably a lot longer.

Haight only does a 1 yr mfg warranty but I haven't read of any units failing and they started in '09 so I'm not too worried. The design is really simple so there isn't too much that could go wrong.