Vipar V300 IR LED Herijuana & Purple Kush grow

aphrodisia

Well-Known Member
Happy new year everyone ! well as happy as the bloody politicians will allow it to be for everybody else anyway. This is my first grow in 2014. I have been eyeing LEDs for a long time and finally got myself a Vipar V300 IR LED growlight, actual draw of 180w. Due to circumstances I was forced to mothball my 400w MH/HPS combo and I have been growing with a 250w HPS for the past couple of years. It does the job but I havent really been happy with my yields under the 250w HPS which is why I decided to try this LED figuring the yield cant be any worse than under a 250w HPS and I might end up being nicely surprised. Anyway here are the specs :

2 x Sannies Herijuana
2 x Purple Kush
Light is vipar v300 IR LED
grown in soil in 10 litre pots


I suspect people who have used LED grow lights and had bad results with them were maybe trying to use them in the same way you would use a MH/HPS setup, but LEDs dont work like that I have found. The first thing I noticed as soon as I plugged in my LED that was going to be a problem was lack of heat. I know most people moan about temps in their grow room/cabinet etc., but marijuana does need a certain amount of heat to grow optimally, especially in winter and I saw this was going to be a problem. After thinking about it for a couple of days I hit upon a solution and got one of these from ebay :


45w heating tube 1.jpg

Its a 45w tube heater which I then fixed inside my persy growbox :

45w heating tube.jpg

Hopefully this will keep my temps from falling below 60 F . I just leave it switched on all the time. I germed 2 herijuana and 2 purle kush seeds under the 250w HPS (for the heat) and once they popped I switched over to the vipar LED. Here is a pic of them with the lights off at 15 days :

vipar LED grow 15 days in.jpg the 2 on the left are the herijuanas and the 2 on the right are the purple kushes. vipar LED grow day 15.jpg

People always say as well that LEDs dont have any penetrating power but this is totally false. They have (at least the high powered ones) so much penetrating power that if you hang your light less than 24" from the top of your plants your plants will show hardly any vertical growth. They will just sort of get bushier and bushier and all growth will be horizontal. This is because the plants dont have to stretch to receive the essential light they need like they do under HPS lamps. I have to admitt this had me scratching my head somewhat for some time until I was lucky enough to come across this information on the internet and I then raised my LED up to about 3 feet over the canopy.
I have to say that so far I have been well impressed by these lights. You can practically see the plants growing on a daily basis ! I hope the lights perform as well for flowering as they do for veg :


vipar LED grow day 22.jpg day 22 vipar LED grow day 23.jpg day 23 vipar LED grow day 24.jpg day 24 vipar LED grow day 26.jpg day 26 LED grow day 26.jpg day 26


One other thing about growing with LEDs, because the grow cabinet temperatures are so down water doesnt evaporate as quickly as under HIDs so the plants end up using a fraction of the water they would use under a MH or HPS light. So go careful with the watering. I will be posting regular updates on this thread until harvest. Does anybody else have any experience of using this particular LED or LEDs in general ? I will be interested in hearing from them. I think I will veg these for one more week and then switch to 12/12 and see how it goes. I will try and post updates weekly. Bye for now.
 

aphrodisia

Well-Known Member
Forgot to ask, as you can see in my last two pics the reddish tones seem to be a bit down compared to the two pics next to them. Is this normal ? as Im still new to LEDs (I keep thinking maybe something going wrong with my lights but I checked them and all the bulbs are functioning :-( ).
 

budman111

Well-Known Member
Nice set up mate really nice, , I got the B3x3 overhead and 2x3 as sidelighting, Vipar LED is amazing, no need to spend $1000 rip off on another LED... ROTFLMAO,

I have the cold problem here in North of Scotland, add more sidelight LED for more heat!!! Remember to give a calcium/calmag supplement you will probably need it, I have VERY soft water here around 18 PPM and plants do not last a week without calcium and they turn twisted and dead, LED manufacturers wont tell you this if you are in a softwater area.,
 

budman111

Well-Known Member
Forgot to ask, as you can see in my last two pics the reddish tones seem to be a bit down compared to the two pics next to them. Is this normal ? as Im still new to LEDs (I keep thinking maybe something going wrong with my lights but I checked them and all the bulbs are functioning :-( ).
Relax you should be OK, did you notice a change in colour?, could be the camera? I had the old A300 series and was awesome (sold for newer B model) and was solid, never let me down just like the newer models...touch wood!
 

Slipon

Well-Known Member
look good, I had a few grows with a 600W HPS under my belt before I invested in LEDs and have now grown with em for 5 runs or so and I have no regrets what so ever

slipon-438244-albums-first-second-led-grow-picture2830026-dsc02741.jpg


and your right about the Heat/water factor and the penetration, at least with the 3W and 5W chips and them with double lenses on, according to my light meter (do measure in Lumens) I got as much output (5K foot candles) as I had with the 600W HPS at around the same distance 18"
 

aphrodisia

Well-Known Member
Relax you should be OK, did you notice a change in colour?, could be the camera? I had the old A300 series and was awesome (sold for newer B model) and was solid, never let me down just like the newer models...touch wood!

Thanks for the kind words. Yes it did cross my mind that it could be the camera. Im quite happy with the way they are growing so far. Have topped 3 of them and will be switching to 12/12 in a few days. I think LEDs are probably the future for indoor growing.
 

ellydee

Well-Known Member
For your future grows, try adding 20%-30% chunky perlite and use a breathable container such as an Airpot or a Smartpot. You can also just drill small holes in you existing pots to let them breathe.
A need to water every 2 or 3 days seems optimal for coco w/LED.
A CFL bulb(s) would be a better alternative to a heater.
 

aphrodisia

Well-Known Member

  • "For your future grows, try adding 20%-30% chunky perlite and use a breathable container such as an Airpot or a Smartpot. You can also just drill small holes in you existing pots to let them breathe."


    I put a layer of expanded clay pellets at the bottom of each pot before putting in the soil to help with drainage and aeration of the roots. Like I posted above Im quite happy with how they are doing so far and I only hope they grow as well in flowering. The vipar v300 is supposedly equal to using a 400w HID I believe.





 

aphrodisia

Well-Known Member
Hi everyone. Quick update, plants are now 30 days old and thriving. Flipped to 12/12 and now on day 2 of flower :


vipar LED grow day 2 of flower.jpg vipar LED grow day 30 and day 2 flower.jpg


Its hard to know when to water using these lights because the soil doesnt dry out like it does under HIDs and sometimes the soil still feels slightly damp when they need water but I think I got it sussed. I notice when they need watering the leaves start drooping slightly giving the whole plant a hangdog look, but as soon as I give them a little water the leaves just perk up stretch out, so now I dont feel the soil anymore, I just watch the leaves.
 

no1da

Member
Looks like you gona have a full house in there soon..
like to see how those Vipars finish up compared to 250 hps.
peace
 

aphrodisia

Well-Known Member
Looks like you gona have a full house in there soon..
like to see how those Vipars finish up compared to 250 hps.
peace

Thats what im hoping. I have no complaints about the lights so far they have done a brilliant job. I notice they make the plants grow tighter and bushier than under a 250w HPS. It remains to be seen how they perform for flowering but from what I have seen in other grow diaries I dont think I will be disappointed.
 

aphrodisia

Well-Known Member
I noticed I have a bit of brown spotting going on on the fan leaves of one of the plants. Looks to me like a bit of light stress. Not a lot I can do about it at the moment as Ive raised the light as far as I am able to. Shows how intense the light from these lights are. The others dont seem to be affected.
 

goodjoint

Well-Known Member
You should turn off that LED before you snap some photos. You can hardly see anything with that red-purple glow...
 

aphrodisia

Well-Known Member
You sure its not a cal/mag def?

Pretty sure its light stress. Its only affected the edge of one leaf and a few minor spots on another leaf of one plant but they all still looking healthy. Apologise about always taking pictures with the lights on but they are in flower now and the way I run my dark cycle makes it a bit awkward to take pics just before lights on or off. I am really impressed with these lights so far with how they are performing.
They have only been 5 days in flower and I can already see quite a few bud sites forming :
 

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aphrodisia

Well-Known Member
If you look really hard at my last set of pics you can see the little bit of light bleaching on the big fan leaf of the bottom left plant
 
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