Hi everyone, just received my SS 400w yesterday and my Arjan's haze 1 seed just sprouted as well, so I put everything in my 44" x 3' space with about 6 ft headspace. About 22" from the plant now but will prob drop it down. I'm going to be transplanting my seedling into a 15 gal smart pot in another week or so after my organic soil mix has had a chance to cook ( already been sitting for a week). I chose to use one plant because from my experience with this strain I know it gets big and leggy real quick ( sativa dominant). I will use lst tie down method to train the long side branches to fill out the space. It's quite cold here now, so one challenge will be maintaining enough heat in the room. I am planning on using 6" can fan w filter and will probably place it in a muffler system mainly to slow the speed a bit. I can fill u in on how that works later. Any comments/questions please fire away!
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
Thanks, SME! Great to be here. Thought I'd post a pic of the little haze seedling in its peat pellet, nothing too impressive yet but it's looking happy and minimal stretch
I have a new, better setup now. It's not exposed to the cold nor is it plagued by low headroom. I moved everything to a couple of tents, a 3' by3' and a 2 by 2'. The plants that were under Hps and UFO (under grow journals) are now all under the solar storm in the 3 by 3 and about 3 weeks into flower. The chemdog (not Arjan's haze) seedling is in the 2 by 2, along with a couple clones and is about 3 weeks into veg. No doubt the cold temps I was dealing with plus the stress from the move slowed everything down, but they are recovering now. The pic was taken a week ago right after the move, so they are looking droopy. Ill put another pic up tomorrow so you can see the improvement (and I will make an effort to use proper lighting. Sorry about the red! So it looks like this will be a journal on how plants flower under solar storm, since I essentially began using the light at start of flower cycle. I am anticipating a much better outcome from this grow with the current setup.
3x3 is a bit large for the SS400, if you want optimal results, but perhaps you're just not filling the whole tent from wall to wall. What other changes have you made? How long do you veg? Are you still using 15gal pots? That seems big for seedlings and small plants but YMMV.
Please resize your pictures to fit better, in the future, try something around 800x600 or you might need to experiment a little if you use landscape photos. Thanks...
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
I agree SME, the SS doesn't provide enough coverage for the entire tent. It's not filled wall to wall, but almost. i vegged the plants about 2 1/2 weeks. they are in week 4 of flower. I am using one corner for a columnar oscillating fan. I decided to put my 180 w UFO alongside the Solarstorm and now the canopy coverage is satisfactory. Hopefully that doesn't hurt the usefulness of the test too much. id rather use a clw light but cant afford another new light. I would think the 800 w would work well in this size space. Btw, 6 " can fan provides Exhaust for both the 3x3 and 2x2 and temp seems stable at 84.
You're right about the pots being too big, I have two 15 gal in there and one 7 gal. One of the 15s had three plants in it before and I had to separate the third one and put it in a 15 gal of its own, definitely overkill but hopefully the overabundance of rootspace won't hurt. The only reason it's in such a large pot is because that's what I had free at the time. The chemdog seedling I took a pic of before was transferred to a smaller pot and is under 250w Hps in the 2x2.
I resized the pictures and tried for better lighting but not sure whether it's a big improvement from before... I'll figure it out as I go.
Here's a close-up of one of the headband plants. This strain has put on the most crystal and is the smellier of the bunch in week 4.
Temperatures have been on the high side, around 90--so I made some adjustments to airflow in the walk-in closet that I'm using for the two tents (3x3 And 2x2). Basically the air just needs to exchange more with the cool air in my living space so I just put a column fan on top of a tent to whisk hotter air toward the exit. I love these fans as they often fit where others won't and they move a pretty good "sheet" of air.
You may want to resize smaller than that, next time, so we don't have to scroll side to side to see the whole thing and I'd like to request some pictures in normal lighting (in the future) so we can gauge health better, the LED color just overloads my eyes...sorry.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
week 5 of flower in a few days.. I was away for a couple days and I had the light too close to one of the plants, which got a little scorched, I was surprised that 4" away was so hot but I'm used to using the UFO with 1 w diodes, which isn't as hot but also not as bright (150w vs 320w draw). Temps were actually not as bad as I thought; I moved the thermometer closer to the plants and now it tops out at 85.
SME, I know I've sinned by taking red led light photos but here are some truer color pics taken under white led to make rhings better. Ill keep experimenting with lighting for pictures, but these look the best so far I think..
I raised the light some and was also happy to find that a clone I had taken from the blue dream finally rooted, so luckily ill be able to try for another one without singed buds
I wouldn't call it sinning but what a difference normal lighting makes, you can clearly see burnt flowers in one picture and cupping/curling in another but the first and third pictures look pretty good.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.