Slinger's 300 watt LED grow, Purple Cadillac and Grand AK

SativaGrows said:

Slinger, just giving you a heads up I was thinking about using Bud Candy and after doing a lot of reading I read it is very good for giving your plants a unique smell and taste, but many people said that it overpowered/ruined the natural flavor of the bud.... Basically from what I read it seems Bud Candy makes every strain taste and smell the same, which even though is supposedly a good smell/taste it isn't the natural flavors of that strain. So I guess it works as advertised but just something to keep in mind... I chose not to use it as I like to try the flavors of different strains. I did choose to use Big Bud though as it supposedly boosts yield without affecting flavor/potency.

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Hmmmm, I like the flavors of different strains as well or else I would be growing all the same strain....now you got me thinking, perhaps Big Bud or Carboload is a better way to go, I will think on it over night and see what happens, thanks for the info and advice man!
-slinger

I like everything your doing^^...........forget the superthrive/bud candy/clearex, your in soil and adding more FFOF, it self adjusts. No whacky additves will help as much as genetics, you got a good strain let her be. Clearex is good for hydro, and No you don't need to flush out your veg nutes/ MJ loves Nitrogen!!!..Go easy on your bloom nutes in fresh FFOF, just water for the first couple of weeks; read their signs.

Ona gel will not cover the smell coming from the 220cfm exhaust! you will need a carbon scrubber(diy/buy whatever)....One of the most important aspects of odor control is LOW RH; even a good carbon filter will not effectively cover full flower odors in high RH conditions.....maybe look into a small dehumidifier, it will help the smells tremendously and will inhibit mold/fungus growth in your room..........

they even make one's without a compressor(no added heat/small electric draw) for small rooms......I may have to look into one myself
http://www.eva-dry.com/ hmm could steal one from home depot

PSUAGRO. said:

I like everything your doing^^...........forget the superthrive/bud candy/clearex, your in soil and adding more FFOF, it self adjusts. No whacky additves will help as much as genetics, you got a good strain let her be. Clearex is good for hydro, and No you don't need to flush out your veg nutes/ MJ loves Nitrogen!!!..Go easy on your bloom nutes in fresh FFOF, just water for the first couple of weeks; read their signs.

Ona gel will not cover the smell coming from the 220cfm exhaust! you will need a carbon scrubber(diy/buy whatever)....One of the most important aspects of odor control is LOW RH; even a good carbon filter will not effectively cover full flower odors in high RH conditions.....maybe look into a small dehumidifier, it will help the smells tremendously and will inhibit mold/fungus growth in your room..........

they even make one's without a compressor(no added heat/small electric draw) for small rooms......I may have to look into one myself
http://www.eva-dry.com/ hmm could steal one from home depot

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Thank you so much for the input, my room humidity when lights are on stays between 25%-35% which from everything I have read is good for flowering, is having your humidity lower than 35 actually good for the plants? I should be misting these girls to keep the humidity up around 60% during veg but unfortunately I have not been doing that. I am gonna skip out on the Clearex and Bud Candy but I am going to get some Big Bud. As far as exhaust into the ONA Bucket, why would this not work, and the exhaust will be 1x 220 CFM and the other is 1 x 184 CFM. I am not transplanting into strait FFOF but actually doing a mix of 15% Perlite/50% FFOF/35% FF Light Warrior. I do plan on only PH'ed Water with some kind of Calcium/Magnesium supplement as I am using only bottled spring water which I have been constantly running into Mag deficiencies unlike when I was actually able to use tap water on the East Coast. Hella excited about tomorrow, will be nice to finally be locked in for flowering!
-slinger

OK.........your RH is good for flowering/ no dehumidifier necessary. The Ona gel needs contact with the air before expelling from the room, your CFM's are high and will exhaust the air before being masked. Anyways I've recently entered a friends house(he said he stopped growing) that was using Ona in his grow , I noticed right away that he was masking a flower room;! anyone really familiar with the smell(growers/smokers/COPS) will pick up on it, parents and non-smokers probably not. My pissed off friend appreciated that I told him it's noticeable and agreed he needed to make changes. Granted he never showed me the area, so maybe he is using it in too large of a room/too many plants IDK.

Yeah tap is "usually" fine for plants....My chlorine levels are high so I use a decent water filter which doesn't remove all cal/mag from it/ lots of beautiful gardens in my neighborhood that use this water straight out of the faucet (i've asked!) so I probably don't even need it.

Week 6 Day 1

So I spent about 4 hours working on everything today, luckily I had the help of a friend!
Ended up purchasing:

- Fox Farm Light Warrior
- .6 cubic feet of Perlite from Miracle Grow ( go ahead and moan, its just perlite no nutes)
- Cal-Mag Plus
-Tiger Bloom
- 25 ft of 6 in flexable ducting
- 2 to 1 6 in duct converter
- 2 x 5 Gallon square white pots

I hooked up my fans 2 fans the 6in 184 CFM Hydrofarm and the 220 CFM Sunhome to both exhaust giving me a passive intake, steady keeping the temps around 81 degrees at the moment, the exhaust will be hooked up to a Carbon Filter or ONA Bucket still have not gotten around to that, I know I have 2 weeks til Flowering, hoping to get through 2 weeks of that without needing the filter, my apartment smells like a rainforest and a little skunky, but nothing overwhelming or that you can smell outside. Successfully transplanted and retrained both plants to their new buckets, put them in a mix of 25% Perlite, 35% FFOF and 40% FFLW. I watered the premixed soil with 1 Gallon of PH'ed 6.4 water with 1.5 tsp of Cal-Mag Plus and afterwards watered both plants with 1 gallon of the same mix. Here are some progress pics of the transplant, will update with photos in the tent sometime relatively soon! Pretty tired from all of the running around but feeling good that everything is basically set up for flowering.

PSUAGRO. said:

OK.........your RH is good for flowering/ no dehumidifier necessary. The Ona gel needs contact with the air before expelling from the room, your CFM's are high and will exhaust the air before being masked. Anyways I've recently entered a friends house(he said he stopped growing) that was using Ona in his grow , I noticed right away that he was masking a flower room;! anyone really familiar with the smell(growers/smokers/COPS) will pick up on it, parents and non-smokers probably not. My pissed off friend appreciated that I told him it's noticeable and agreed he needed to make changes. Granted he never showed me the area, so maybe he is using it in too large of a room/too many plants IDK.

Yeah tap is "usually" fine for plants....My chlorine levels are high so I use a decent water filter which doesn't remove all cal/mag from it/ lots of beautiful gardens in my neighborhood that use this water straight out of the faucet (i've asked!) so I probably don't even need it.

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I didnt end up going with the ONA Bucket yet man, I am holding off, spent too much time today working on the girls as it is! I dont really have to worry about the cops or parents (I have my own place), everything I do is well within state laws and I am growing way under the max you are allowed in my area. Happy to have the extra time to decide on odor control, thanks a lot for the tips!

Hey guys, just a quick update, have not done anything to the plants since their transplant, I figure I wont water for a week which leaves about 4 more days til I will be doing anything, dont wanna stress them out any more than they are already from the trans. No nutes til the 2nd week of flowering which will be about 4 weeks from transplant date, giving the girls time to eat up the nutes already in the mix they just got put in. The new growth is looking good and we have a pretty even canopy on the Grand AK.
-slinger

slinger36s said:

Found the Specs for my LED light its a 300 watt Pro Series Quad Band LED Grow Light Input Voltage: 110V +/_ 10% 50/60 Hz Power Output: 300W (more powerful than a 1000W HPS) LED Configuration: 300 x 1W LED (red/blue/orange/white) Lux (center): 392 lux/2.5m 55 lux/3.5m Lumen: 6600 lm Lighting Coverage: approx. 36 square feet

Lifespan: 50,000 hr LED made by: BridgeLux (USA) Wavelengths: Red=660nm, Blue=455nm, Orange=615nm, White=full spectrum Dimensions : 18" x 12" x 3.5" Weight: 19 lb

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6'x6' seems a bit much for a 300 watt LED... I'd say the effective footprint is closer to 4'x4'. Also, I don't know if a 300 watt LED "more than replaces" a 1000 watt HID. 400 watt is more reasonable. Marketing is often unrealistic.

That being said, I'm glad you got your PH problem fixed. You have a pretty interesting grow going here, thanks for the quality documentation.

Also, have you ever tried House and Garden nutrients? I've never had better results... and they may seem a bit expensive comparatively but if you do a cost analysis they're really quite reasonable.

great loking plants ! you did a reallygood job wiht the LST and the LED's are rockin out ! .IF you get a chance check out my led ufo grow and my lst method.. you may have some use for it in the future..alot easier then the string method...cant wait to see your ladies flower man !!!

Week 6 Day 4

Took a couple pics of the girls, dont have the DSLR right now so they are not the best but yea. I think im gonna take 30 mins of light of the timer every day which will roughly put us into 12/12 by February 1.

mamakush said:

6'x6' seems a bit much for a 300 watt LED... I'd say the effective footprint is closer to 4'x4'. Also, I don't know if a 300 watt LED "more than replaces" a 1000 watt HID. 400 watt is more reasonable. Marketing is often unrealistic.

That being said, I'm glad you got your PH problem fixed. You have a pretty interesting grow going here, thanks for the quality documentation.

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I know that the 300 watt is no where near the same as a 1000 watt hps, these were just the specs that were presented online, I think that possibly my 2 x 300 watt is close to the 1000 watt comparison but that is just my personal thoughts. I will know better at the end of this grow! Thanks for checking out my girls, excited for flowering!

NugHunter said:

great loking plants ! you did a reallygood job wiht the LST and the LED's are rockin out ! .IF you get a chance check out my led ufo grow and my lst method.. you may have some use for it in the future..alot easier then the string method...cant wait to see your ladies flower man !!!

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Ill check out your journal sir, I am happy with the string LST but always looking into new methods, the string method is easiest for me because I can constantly move the strings as needed.

Week 7

Sorry there has not been much of a update lately, we are currently on a light schedule of 15 hrs on 9 hours off, by this coming Friday, we will be locked into 12/12. Been doing a lot of LST lately, trying to get the tops to remain the same height is a constant job. Fed for the first time in a week today, 1 gallon per plant with 2 tsp of Cal-Mag Plus. Water was PH'ed to 6.5 . Will add some new pictures sometime this week before we hit 12/12. grow on!
-slinger

Week 7 Day 5

Photo Dump: nothing has been done to the plants besides constant LST, 2 days til 12/12!!!
-slinger

grow is looking good brah.,,when u going 12/12? .keep on keepin on !!

My guess is in 1 day....just a guess......

The official 12/12 date will happen at 12:30 AM Pacific Time on February 1, 2013! Right now we are at 13 on 11 off, bee going down a half hour each day for the past few days. I think I am getting some light bleaching on the Purple Cadillac so I moved the light back a couple inches, leaves in the center part of my canopy were turning yellow white, when holding my hand under the light that is the brightest area so I am assuming bleaching.
-slinger

slinger36s said:

Day 10



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slinger36s said:

Week 3 Day 5

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Nice grow, things are looking great. I know this problem is way behind you now but I think from looking at the first set of pictures this is a Phosphorus deficiency. And looking at the second set, this is a Potassium deficiency. Anyway things look great now, I’m looking forward to flower and I bet you are too. Nice work on the LST, your fingers must hurt from tying all those little knots. lol

Instead of string try twist ties. They sell them in a roll with a built in cutter to cut to size. Usually in the gardening section of home depot. Works great.

Week 8 Day 1 (1st Day of 12/12!!!)

Well we are into the flowering phase of this journey, so excited to see some buds starting to form! Watered both plants with Ph'ed bottled water with 1 tsp of Cal-Mag Plus in each gallon of water that was fed the plants. Measure my run off water and the Ph was around 6.2 which is a little lower than I would like so I will be raising the ph of the next watering to 7 hopefully that will get it to raise up a few to around 6.5ish. Took a couple photos during watering, you can see that the middle of the canopy of the Purple Cadillac was bleached out a bit, I think this was due to the light being 4 inches from the canopy but if I am wrong or you have other thoughts please chime in. It has been a little over 2 weeks since I transplanted into the new soil and the next watering which I think will be in about 4 days I will be giving them both 1/8 strength bloom nutes (Tiger Bloom). Girls are starting to smell even stronger, eventually I am gonna have to break down and get some kind of odor control or move my tent where I can vent out the window, not sure whats gonna happen yet. Thanks for all your helpful input so far!
-slinger

Week 8 Day 3 (day 3 of 12/12)

So we are starting to get some stretching and more abundance of pistols! The branches are getting a little harder to bend and I think I am done with the LST on these plants, now its just time to sit back, water and watch! Its been a little over 2 weeks since we transplanted into the new soil, I am gonna get it one more basic watering with PH'ed water and CAL-MAG PLUS, then we will see about a very low dose of nutes. Gonna enjoy this round of flowering I put a lot of attention into the training of these girls and I hope it pays off in the long run, I will be happy with 4 oz per plant but I can always hope for more than that! Below are some pictures you can see them stretching
-slinger

Day 5 (of 12/12)

The beginnings of flowers are starting to form, pistol production is picking up, sorry i dont have more HQ pics for you guys but the digital is MIA at the moment. Last night the Purple Cadillac was getting a little droopy so I watered them both with Ph'ed 6.8 water, still trying to raise the PH of the soil a bit. So here is the breakdown of the watering per plant.

Crystal Geyser Spring Water ( 1 gallon, average ph of 7.5)
1 tsp of Cal-Mag Plus 2-0-0
3/4 of tsp Tiger Bloom 2-8-4 (PH down to 6.8 recommended dosage 2-3 tsp per gallon)

Previous run off water from the girls soil was around 6.2, this run off is 6.4 which I am ok with. Anyways Ill be back with an update friday or saturday for you guys, until then grow on RIU!
-slinger