hello all,
i'm happy to be starting a new grow as part of the gfp with 400w of led from clw. i've been excited to try led. here are the basic details: four plants from seed exclusively under the 400. three "jamaican dream" eva seeds and one auto ww from dinafem (freebee from the attitude with my eva order). they are all in a single earthbox but will get supplemental feeding down the road through the rez. they were all direct sown (sowed?) on aug 2 and all three of the jamaicans have since presented themselves, it now being day 5. still waiting on the auto. i usually lst them around the box, and this is the plan with the jamaicans. not sure yet what will happen with the auto; i guess i'll just have to wait and see if she's a fast grower or a super dwarf like a lot of the autos tend to be. i will now attempt to upload some pics of the setup.

Welcome to the forums!

This is my two week update. All in all things are going well. I started them about ten inches from the seedlings. As they got bigger I found that some of the leaf tips were drooping and either burning or bleaching - or something was happen to the leaf tips. I've since moved the lamp up to 24" and things seem to have stabilized. The auto that was running late finally came up but is about a week behind the Jamaicans. I'm going to try to upload photos from my phone now since my computer is having issues, so we'll see how that goes. Also I forgot to mention that I've got them on an 18/6 schedule...

Can't seem to figure out how to upload photos directly from an iphone. Anyone have any suggestions on how to do that?

Today I fim'd the tallest of the Jamaicans. I'll wait a week or so to see how she responds before I do any pruning on the two others. I have not been able to find any grow journals that have fim'd or topped with this strain. I plan to just let the auto ww do its thing.

I also tried to experiment with just how far too keep the ss from the plant tops. As mentioned, all four seeds were directly planted into final medium and I just let the lights run until they came up. I had it about ten inches away and was able to keep it 10 above the tops for at least that first week. Around then was when I noticed some distress, starting in the first true leaves. It took a couple of days to figure out that the distance was the problem (but now that I know what it looks like, it's really easy to spot). Moved the lamp up to 24" and everything was good. Yesterday morning I tried bringing it down down 6" to 18 but when I checked on them this afternoon, I noticed that they were not digging it. Very subtle but definitely the same issue. So I have since moved it back up to 24 and I think that's the end of that little experiment - for this particular strain anyway - unless they demand more of a gap as they mature.

Growth is very squat, which is great for my setup, and with really tight internodes and thick, sturdy stems. Also, all four really have a vibrant green color (doesn't really show up in the photos with fluorescent lighting) that I don't normally see so I'm really happy with the results so far.

I don't know exactly how big that "earthbox" is but 4 plants in one small container is just asking for problems, imho.

YMMV...

Sept 3 and things are moving along. All of the Jamaicans have been fim’d and have new growth. The auto is flowering already so only about three weeks from seed. I’ll be dropping a screen over them this week and plan to shift to 12/12 next week.

Day 3 of 12/12
Finally got the screen on and made the switch to 12/12 over the weekend. I'm hoping for a nice even canopy but one of the jamaican dreams is a runt.

The auto has really started to stretch out now that the light schedule has changed. No sign of flower from the jamaicans yet. Pics below with the flouro on - I moved the ss up and turned on the flourescent for the pics but didn't realize how red the pics still turn out because the ss was still on. Next update I'll photo with just the flourescent lamp on...

Nice grow. Strange little earthbox. Plants look nice n bushy. Hows the heat on the 400 SS? Mine arrives tomorrow.

There's definately some heat but I haven't had to use the portable ac so that's huge in my op for saving $$. I'm able to keep temps stable in the mid 80's with just a 165cfm inline fan with 6" passive air intake. It's nice and quiet. But it will depend on your ambient air temps where you are of course. And the size of your space. I've seen it mentioned here but it bears repeating... Clw should make the fan exhaust port 6" round do that we can just put some duct on and vent it right out. Maybe in future models.

EDIT: I didn't know there was that much heat coming out of the panel itself.