Alright, so finally I found some time to pump out this journal as promised per terms and conditions at the time of sale. I participated in the grow light feedback that California Light Works offered at the time when I bought the grow lamp and as part of the agreement, I’ve promised that I will commit some time to put together a journal… so without further ado, here’s the goods so far. I will comment on the pictures and note what I’ve noticed.
A bit background info about my previous growing experience: I’ve been growing for a few years now. My previous setup was a 1000 watt Hydrofarm magnetic HPS ballast with matching Hydrofarm aircooled hood. The reason why I choose a magnetic ballast over a digital was because of cost: I would go through a bulb every 6 months with a digital so then I changed to a magnetic and then the bulbs lasted for a little over a year before they reached a point where the light intensity from the bulb justify the cost of running it. Long story short, I wanted to save more money and it’s probably a good chance that why you’re reading this too. So join me in this journey! I encourage any questions or comments, just keep it civil eh? If not, I will not respond.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The first thing I’ve noticed is that “Wow, this thing is bright!” I think it should come with a warning label… seriously. The reflective light (I guess) emits purple but when you look directly at the plants, the emitted light looks white! It is that bright! Initially I had the light about 18”s away from the plant… the lamp gave off so much light that it gave it nutrient burns. When I moved the light more like 24”s away they absolutely love it – all the tips are pointing up, nice dark leaves, fat f’in leaves for the size of the plants.

This is not a veg light for sure. At first I was like “eh, this doesn’t look like it reflects light very well… maybe I’ve made a bad decision.” I mean, how can it? The engineers would have to design it so that all the LEDs are focusing on the same angle or something and then from that lens or something I suppose the angel of the light would be more controllable… something to think about I suppose. Y

This thing does get hot too though. Just because they use LEDs don’t think for a minute that you’ll get away with shady ventilation; if not, I guarantee you’ll cook your plants. This is not a veg light, again. After about a week of use and observation, I can safely now say that this product is very comparable to a 1000w HPS/MH lamp as far as the light intensity/light penetration and the light cover area. I can’t wait to see how this does in the flowering stage.

To be honest, the first three pictures are a week old and here is the current picture as of today (4/25/2012) The roots finally reached the reservoir on the five gallon buckets. I grew these up from seed. I normally do not do this, I usually grow from clones or teens, however this time I made an exception; mainly because I haven't done this before, grew from seed that is, and two: I got seeds from a sack I got from a dispensary. I mean, it would be okay if I walked in there intending to buy some seeds but... eh.

update: 4/27/2012

Wow, another interesting thing I want to mention is that when I went to check on my plants today I’ve noticed that inside the tent was a little warm, so then I thought “I better get some more ventilation going on here.” So I bent down to do some work and noticed right away that underneath the lamp is about 10-15 degrees coolers than above the lamp. I mean how cool is that! It’s usually the other way around with HPS/MH lamps lol.


Dang, I’ve been meaning to reply to this for a while now lol but for some reason or another it hasn’t happened one way or another. Wtf this sounds like a riddle or something : p. Anyways, the reason I grew some many plants in one pot is because I knew some of those will be males and I was gonna un-root them, however, with some consideration I decided to see how these plants turn out and if they turn out good I might cross bred it with another plant or something… Something to think about.
I normally do not turn out one gram per watt, I always thought that was like an urban legend or something lol. I believe in quality or quantity, at least most extent, but it is something to consider I suppose. I mean, one gram per watt is something to aim for then why not just veg the plants for six months? I mean I could get two or ten grams per watt, if veg for like nine months under a fluorescent lamp, but then again I’m looking for quality and six-nine months sounds ridiculously long. In fact, you could theoretically achieve the greatest watt per gram or gram per watt or whatever, if you just let it veg outside like it does in the wild, however, there are so many plants that like different PH levels, nutrients, light, etc, that it’s almost impossible to control your plants like you can indoor. So that completely defeats that purpose. And if you grow outside, you’re more susceptible to mold and other stuff you have to grow a healthy plant above anything else; the plants survival matters more if you are growing outside than the quality of the end product. As far as I’m considered, outdoor weed is low (medium quality at best) while any decent indoor from a decent strain would be considered at least medium grade.


Anyways, enough rambling, here’s some shots just two days later! I use a deep water culture system, a cheapo Home Depot edition if you know what I mean. Let me know if you want to know more lol. I have a feeling this is an outdoor plant... we'll see I guess.

Welcome to the forums!

I'm a HID grower too but the SolarStorm is one of the better LED lights on the market. I'm still skeptical however; nobody has demonstrated that the SS can yield as much as a 1000w HPS yet. More than one grower has said it's closer to a 600w HID than 1000w. So I have a few questions and comments.

How much do you normally yield with your 1000w setup, 1g/w? Why so many seedlings in one pot? Are you growing DWC or some other method? It's hard to tell in your pictures.

"I usually grow from clones or teens..." Teens?

Light doesn't cause "nute" burns, too much nutrients causes nute burns. Too much heat from any lamp can burn, too much "light" can bleach, so I'm not sure which you meant.

The fat leaves could just mean that you're growing indica genetics, do you remember what you bought?

The SS certainly *IS* a good veg light, you just have to let seedlings acclimate.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how your grow turns out.


SME

Update 5/2/2012
So I’ve bought couple of Blueberry clones and moved one of my pot-o-seeds to individual pots. Three of the four plants made the transplant. It looks like the smallest one I transplanted is probably not gonna make it but eh, I don’t mind because it gives me a chance to plant an OG plant which is what I really wanted to do. I’ll probably just end up kill it by the end of the week if it still looks weak. We’ll see


Here’s a picture of one of the Blueberry clones.

Here's a picture of one of the plants that did make it.

and another... I'm using the pig as a reference in case someone is wondering about the size of the plants relative to everything else I guess.
The pig is about 3 inches cross all the way around; it's basically 3" ball of pig goodness.

"...they absolutely love it – all the tips are pointing up, nice dark leaves, fat f’in leaves for the size of the plants."

I know exactly what you mean. My experience has shown me that seedlings grown under a quality LED light (I currently use a Kessil 350 magenta and purple) have less stretch, broader greener leaves and rapid vegetative growth compared to seedlings grown under HID. Now my plants are 60/40 indica/sativa, so I couldn't say that a more dominate sativa strain would respond the same but I expect they will. The one problem that I have seen with the LED lights is that the plants don't grow as tall. Not so bad for SOG but someone trying to get maximum height and yield might not be as pleased. This may be mitigated by increasing the the distance between the LED light and the top of the plants.

Update: 5/9/2012


Ahh, it’s like seeing something from High Times, lol. I bet these babies will look awesome by flowering time. The LED light looks white in person and the sun light is so bright that the leaves become transparent; you can’t see that in these pictures however.

Got another new plant, this time I asked the budtender which strain he suggests and shows me what he had in inventory. When I came across “J-Wreck,”(I believe) it’s a cross between Jack Herer and Trainwreck, he said “this is the hardest strain to grow” and I said “I’ll take it!” and here it is!

I also topped two of the plants because I was bored. I have a feeling I have to find a replacement for that pig real soon which is a shame because I just hired him

Update 5-18-2012: So the Blueberry strain is doing pretty well. It's weird because how sativa-like the strain is when it's suppose to be 80% indica... I dunno, I'll let you judge for yourself.

I'll probably start flowering them by the end of this month.
Update 5-19-2012: LOL you know you're medicated when your writing fails you lol. Man, I just had to write another review just to redeem myself.

Here’s one of the original Humboldt Gold strains. This one, is the one that didn’t get topped. There is a noticeable difference when it comes to the size of the main cola versus the one I didn’t top.

Here’s one that did get topped.

Flash for your camera is your friend.

Ahh, and my private reserve lol. When she’s ready to flower the rest will follow but until then… it’s every plant for themselves; the “ghetto” plants are already used to this lol… I got a pot where I dumped like 5-6 plants into one five gallon bucket and feed them tap water and Miracle Gro, lol, your typical home grower. As you can see, none of the plants are branching out; instead they’re all jockeying for top position, they’re more concerned growing taller rather than growing fuller.

Believe it or not, there’s like 5-6 plants in there. I’ve used two large net pots this time; one of them holds like 5-6 plants and other one is in a large net pot all by itself. They’ve both started their lives with tap water rather than the reverse osmosis water that I feed the other plants.


Notice how even though the plant has all the space it needs it doesn’t branch out at all… well until I fed some of the left other from the other plants.


Even this cute like guy lol. Look at this shit! I just feel like ripped her out her home just because… ewww.

Not to be a nag but could you also occasionally include a few more pics with normal lighting so we can get a better sense of color, etc? The "all purple-all the time" pics kind of blend into purple noise because people aren't used to seeing in that spectrum.

Thanks...

Updates...as promised?