My First Grow = LED Micro Grow

[audix2359]

This is my 2nd attempt at a grow journal, so here it goes.

I've gone from a plan of a 10 sq ft grow to a micro grow. As I kept scaling down, I kept leaning more and more to LED's, mostly because of the heat issue and because I realized that my space was going to be quite limited.

So, I germed close to 20 seeds about 10 days ago, using cups of distilled water for each strain. All of the seeds cracked in 12 hours so I continued to germ using a paper towel. After 24 hours, most had sprouted.

My container is a 45 gallon Rubbermaid tub. I've seen some people who get 2 of them and stack them but I only have 1. My growing area is 2.3 square feet at the bottom; it's probably closer to 3 square feet as it moves up. The container itself is a little over 4 square feet but some the the room inside is taken up by lights. Temps stay between 72 and 75 and RH stays between 50 and 55%.

All of my germed seeds were placed in 20 oz styrofoam cups with drainage at the bottom. For soil, I used a mix of 25% MG Ogranic (no nutes), 25% perlite/vermiculite, 25% Jiffy Mix (mostly sphangum moss) and 25% mushroom compost. I planted my seeds 1 week ago and due to some circumstances, they were without light for 2 days. When I got them under some light, most had broken soil and were really streched.

My current light set up is all LED's. Right now I have 7 large LED bulbs with mixed colors (168 LED's per bulb) and 9 small LED bulbs with mixed colors (66 LED's per bulb) shining on my plants. I have a total of 1770 LED's using 136 watts of power. I have 8 LED's mounted to the lid of the container and
8 LED's in desk lamps providing some close up light to the plants.

As of today, I have the following plants:

3 White Widow
3 Big Bud
3 Speed Queen
3 Ice
2 Magic Bud

I tried to germinate some Crystal seeds but only 2 sprouted and out of those 2, neither broke the soil. Since I'm going to be removing a lot of plants anyway, I tossed those already.

Thanks to 85Cannabliss, I decided that I'll run some string or wire across the top of the inside of the container and train the plants to grow along that - kind of like a ScrOG with less plants. I also want the plants small so I started no 12/12 from seed (aside from the few days of darkness they had).

I'm hoping to keep 1 female per strain and get as much bud as possible. I have 1 additional, smaller Rubbermaid container that I might be able to get a plant or two into. I'm considering purchasing a small wattage HPS security lamp and rigging it up in the small container so I can keep a few more plants - we'll see.

The photos below are as follows:

Pic #1, A White Widow plant that broke the soil in darkness. This was taken after about 48 hours in the dark.
#2, The same Widow (I think), after 4 days under LED's.
#3, One of my Ice plants.
#4, One of my Speed Queen plants.
#'s 5 &6, Some group shots in the bin.
#6, a photo with the lid on.

Any advice, pointers, etc would be great. I'll take all I can get but if you've grown with LED's or done 12/12 from seed, please help me along!

 

[mastersativa]

Looking pretty good bro. I also have that rubbermaid 45 gal tub, I am using it now to start some seedlings in while my other girl finishes flower. I figure she has at minimum 4 more weeks to go until she is done. I am also gonna do lst on the new seedlings to keep em low since i have limited space as well. Right now i have eight in soil, none have broke surface yet, i put four in there 2 days ago and four more in there this morning. You got a little head start on me and since im just using floros i think you will get em going quicker, but not sure with led's cuz i am still studying others led grows and havent tried them myself. So i should be able to learn from what you got goin on since your a little ahead of me. I also have scavenged a fan from my old dell that i plan on mounting to the top side to extract heat, i dont know if you will have as high of temps as i do because your using leds. Anyway i will be folowing your grow bro, Good luck.

 

[DankCloset]

they look like there stretching a bit, but altogether it looks cool how effective?

 

[audix2359]

I think that most of the stretch happened during the couple of days after they broke soil that they were without light. Since I've gotten them under the LED's, they have not really stretched at all. Keep in mind that I'm also running a little over 5 LED lights per square inch. I have not found a higher ratio in any of the LED grows that I've seen.

I've noticed that the general growth is pretty slow compared to other peoples grows but this might be because I'm running 12/12 where most of the grows I've seen have been running at least 18 hours of light.

I'm following a grow journal on another site where a guy is growing 1 Ice plant using only LED light (about 20 total watts) and the plant is flowering like a champ - nice and frosty. He also kept his plant pretty far away from the LED's at first and it's got nice, tight internodal spacing.

 

[AlienBait]

LEDs Right on!

 

[jash]

nice to see another LED grow:hubba:. good luck on this audix

 

[DankCloset]

cool cool, this should be interesting, but know every grow is differant

 

[audix2359]

Thanks for dropping in AB. I hope you follow since you've got a successful LED grow behind you; and the fact that you have a hell of a green thumb.

 

[bombbudpuffa]

Hey Audix, care if I join in here with you? I'm just experimenting with one plant in veg. Maybe, if problems arise we could help each other out.

 

[md.apothecary]

It's nice to see more LED peeps coming about. Yes, LED's are hella-expensive, but it really does have its advantages.

I am uber excited to get mine gowing! I have some WR seeds in germ right now and have some bag seed plants I am going to tweak my LED system up with while the WR get going.

kewl!

 

[audix2359]

I'm following your LED grow as well BBP. You've got some amazing grows.

 

[audix2359]

Day 11 update:

Kind of slow growing the past week. The plants have not stretched that I can tell but they also have not done much in terms of leaf growth. Perhaps the roots are filling in the space first; I'm using 20 oz. cups. I think the 12/12 from seed also has something to do with it. Another possibility is that these were kind of stunted/stressed from the beginning as most of these plants spent their first few days after breaking soil in complete darkness.

I have noticed that the soil is drying out a little more quickly - I suppose that's a good sign as my temps are still running in the low to mid 70's. I watered everything on 11/1 as the cups were pretty light and the soil meter read dry. I had to water a few plants again tonight as the soil was pretty dry.

Last night, I took the runts of each of my strains and gave them some bodybuilding nutes. I'm probably going to end up tossing these anyway so I thought "what the heck". I gave them a mixture of creatine, waxy maize starch and BCAAs. Naturally, nothing much changed.

Something I've noticed is that over half of the cotyledons are starting to turn yellow. I'm taking this as a sign that I need to introduce some food so the plants that were dry got their first taste of nutes tonight. I gave them a 25% strength 20-12-13 plant food; I'll see how they do.

Here's some pictures; I'm sure you will be able to tell what I'm talking about with the slow growth and yellowing.

1st photo is Big Bud #1 before getting a watering and a dose of nutes. You can sort of see the yellowing of the cotyledons and definitely see the lack of growth for 11 days.

2nd photo is my Magic Bud #2 plant. This was a real runt at the beginning but it's put on some relative size in the last week. Not as much yellowing from it. This is one of the plants that got a shot of my creatine mixture last night.

3rd photo is my Magic Bud #3 plant. This one's yellowing a bit and is very small.

4th photo is my Speed Queen #1 plant. This is probably my largest plant and you can definitely see some yellowing. It got some nutes tonight along with a drink.

5th photo is another shot of the same Speed Queen plant.

6th photo is is my Speed Queen #2 plant. Pretty yellow and although it's early, it kind of looks like it might be a different phenotype.

7th photo is my White Widow #1. I didn't focus very well but this has another set of leaves growing but also has a lot of yellowing. It's soil is pretty moist so it won't need a drink for another few days.

Any advice at this point would be great. I think I'm doing the right thing by starting nutes but I'm not 100%. I'm sure my plants will tell me in a day or two.

 

[bombbudpuffa]

Kind of slow growing the past week. The plants have not stretched that I can tell but they also have not done much in terms of leaf growth.

Exact same thing here on 24/7. You should check out this thread. I think we need more than blue and red. Orange or amber looks like it's used the most by plants. I'm thinking we don't have enough of the light spec so we have slow growth.

Something I've noticed is that over half of the cotyledons are starting to turn yellow. I'm taking this as a sign that I need to introduce some food so the plants that were dry got their first taste of nutes tonight. I gave them a 25% strength 20-12-13 plant food; I'll see how they do.

At this stage i'd guess that any yellowing is ph related and not nute related so be careful giving nutes this early.

 

[audix2359]

It definitely could be related to the light spectrum, although I've seen some LED grows go pretty well with just 2 wavelengths of light. At least they're growing and I want them small anyway...

Thanks for the tip on the yellowing. My Ph is running a little on the high side. I added lemon juice to the water last night (along with the nutes) to get the Ph down to around 5 for the water, hopefully that will make the soil a little less alkaline.

 

[bombbudpuffa]

to get the Ph down to around 5 for the water

Feeding your plants with a ph of 5 is a death sentence to them. You want your ph at 6.4,6.5.

 

[audix2359]

According to my Ph meter, the soil is a bit over 7, which I know is too high. Any ideas on getting the Ph down aside from the killer water?

 

[bombbudpuffa]

Lemon juice. Start with a mil a gallon and work your way to the desired ph.

 

[audix2359]

Thanks. I used lemon juice, just a bit much.

 

[audix2359]

So I just checked the plants. The 3 I watered yesterday look a little better, a lot less yellow. I watered a couple more tonight with some water at 6.5 Ph with a dash of food. One plant I really soaked with food so I'm curious to see how it responds. I have far too many plants for my box as it is so I'm going to end up killing a bunch anyway; might as well experiment while I can.

I also moved a lot of the LEDs back and removed a couple of lamps. I'm not sure if there is such a thing as TOO MUCH LED light but I had lamps that were about 1 cm away from the plants. After some rearranging, the lights are still close but not too close, about 8" away.

I've been contemplating adding a few CFL's to the box to see if that will jump start some growth - possibly add a bit more spectrum to the box. If I don't see some changes by the weekend I'll probably add 3, 42w CFL's.

 

[AlienBait]

I also moved a lot of the LEDs back and removed a couple of lamps. I'm not sure if there is such a thing as TOO MUCH LED light but I had lamps that were about 1 cm away from the plants. After some rearranging, the lights are still close but not too close, about 8" away.

I would recommend putting the LED lamps back in and keep them around 1-2 inchs away from the tops of the plants. You will know that they are getting too much light if the leaves start twisting.

Give it another week to see what happens before adding the CFLs.

Just my opinion....