Hey guys, I received the Solar Storm as part of CLW's grower feedback program a little while ago and I started my grow about a week ago. I had the seedlings under a few CFL's for the past week and just switched the Solar Storm on yesterday so it's time to get this journal started.

First, a little info about the grow. This is in a 3x2(originally mistyped 4x3) closet with about 9 feet of headroom. One 400w Solar Storm will be providing all of the light. The plan is to grow 3 plants, but you will notice in the pictures that there are 5 seedlings. I originally germinated 3 seeds, but 2 of them suffered an unfortunate cat attack just a few days after sprouting so I germinated 2 more seeds in case they didn't fully recover. Soon, I will choose the 3 that respond the best to my growing techniques and just grow those to full maturity. So just keep in mind that not all of the seedlings were germinated at the same time.

Now to introduce the plants. Currently growing are:
1 Green House Seeds Jack Herer (JH)
1 Emerald Triangle Seeds Blueberry Headband (BB)
2 Vision Seeds Russian Snow (WR)
1 DNA Genetics Limited Collection Snowcap LA (LA)

The soil is an organic mix that I mixed up myself. I've used and added to the soil a few times, so the exact recipe is lost. But it's basically made of Sphagnum peat moss, perlite, vermiculite, worm castings, mushroom compost,Texas greensand,and an organic tomato fertilizer. All stuff available from the organic section of my local plant nursery, nothing too fancy.

First impressions of the light. Upon unboxing, I knew this was a serious piece of equipment. This is a solid, well made, and very good looking light. Definitely worthy of the price tag that comes with an American made LED grow light. Let's be honest, it's a bit expensive. But CLW delivered a very high quality product. After having the light on for a full day, I can say this is definitely powerful enough to cover the space I have it in. No worries here about the advertised power of the Solar Storm or new gen LED grow lights in general, me being a first time LED user. I was skeptical about switching from HPS to LED, but this thing is definitely a viable grow light. Let's talk about heat, since I imagine that will be the reason a lot of people are considering LED lights anyways. I had the light on for 18 hours in a small closet with the door closed and only a single 8 inch fan suspended at the top of the closet helping to move air. Ambient temps in my house with the AC on are at 70F, temps in the closet after a full day of light: 76F. That's awesome. Unfortunately, I never grew in this exact closet with HPS so I don't have a direct comparison, but I can say from a little bit of experience that I'm pretty sure an HPS grow would have been significantly warmer in the same circumstance. As far as the Solar Storm's ability to grow dank buds, the proof will be in the plant. But I am confident so far.

Next post will have some progress pictures to keep your interest.

Welcome to the forums!

I hope you don't plan on filling that entire 4x3 space because the SS400w isn't big enough for that much room in flower.

Did the cat survive? I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures.


SME

I'm sorry, I mistyped there. The room is actually 3'x2', not really sure why I thought it was 4'x3'. I'll fix that in the original post. You are right, a 4'x3' area would be too large for this light. a 3'x2' or possibly 3'x3' is just about perfect for the 400w Solar Storm. It just fits, front to back in a 2' deep space and has about 10 inches on each side in a 3' length space.

My germination process involves soaking the seed in a shot glass filled with distilled water for 24 hours. I keep the shot glass in a heated area at 76F. After 24 hours, the seeds are planted in a Solo cup directly into the growing medium that they will be growing in for the rest of their lifespan. Using this method, I have a 100% germination rate usually by day three if not sooner. Then the newly planted seeds are placed under CFL's on an 18/6 schedule until they get their first set of real leaves, then switched to full light. Two things went wrong in the seedling stage of this grow so far. One, I didn't have the ability to install the Solar Storm as soon as I would have wanted, so the seedlings had to stay under weak CFL's for too long. This caused them to stretch too much and grow slower than usual. The second problem was that my cat took a bite out of one of the seedlings and knocked another one over, so obviously way more stress on the young seedlings than I would have hoped for.

Let's get to the pics.

Here's one of the seedlings popping up under a CFL.

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4


First day under the Solar Storm, Day 8
This picture makes it look like the light is way above the plants, but it's only about 18 inches above the tops of the plants. I elevated the cups on a table to get them up closer to the light, as this was as low as I could hang the light.


The red things around the stems here are just straws that i slit up the middle and wrapped around the stems in order to provide support. I pinch the stems when they are young in order to damage them just enough so they will grow back stronger once they spring back to life. This causes the plants to droop, so the straws are necessary to hold them up. This technique is described in better detail on lots of forums, so I won't go into much more than that.


Very excited to see how they will grow now that they are under the Solar Storm.

Hey guys, quick picture update. They've been under the Solar Storm for 2 weeks now, so far so good. Got a question for a more experienced grower about one of the plants, down by the picture of it.

The purple is kind of obnoxious, I'll get them under a normal light for the next pics.

Left to right: DNA Genetics Limited Collection Snowcap LA, Vision Seeds Russian Snow, Green House Seeds Jack Herer.


Snowcap LA, vigorous grower in veg.


Russian Snow. Wondering if anyone can offer any insight into what's going on here. Topped the plant a little over a week ago and since then it has gone crazy. It's grown a bunch of new tops, not just two, in a bit of a clusterfuck. Waiting to see if it will work itself out, but I'm worried about the leaves getting too crowded and competing for light. Any thoughts? Maybe just a characteristic of the particular phenotype? Here's a couple of pics. I'll try to get a better view if anyone thinks they can help.



Jack Herer, looking happy. One weird set of leaves that twisted in an identical manner on each side. Topped early, growing very predictably.



Thanks for looking guys, hope you enjoyed the pics.

It looks like you fimmed that plant instead of just topping it but it is hard to tell, for sure, with the color overload and angle. It should be fine.

It's been a couple of weeks since the last update. About a month since the start of the grow. Probably going to flip them to flowering here in about a week or two. Quickly running out of space in the closet.



Jack


LA


White Russian

They look pretty healthy to me...

Buds.

Remember: GFP "journals" are supposed to be updated at least weekly.

I like the B&W shot though...