LED Grow Light Forum

Eheh I am pisiw, a medical cannabis user with a personal use grow license. I am on a limited income, so I have scrounged bits here & there to do this... And my previous grow set up was with a metal cabinet 3x3x4 with 4 t5s & a 200wHPS with clip fans & crappy weird stuff for filters...

I could grow medicine, but not so much and with inadaquate light the buds, could get medicinal, but were loose & airy.
I could grow 2 or 3 plants in a soil medium & get an ounce or two off each.

In the mean time I bin savin' my cafe money & doin' some research...

I live in tiny place that's old so not much power available to run stuff... This is a consideration.

Bin reading about LEDs but until now folks have bin saying that they're great for veg, but not for buds... Heck..my t5 nursery set up works for that...

Got informed about Solar Storm lights from a really, really nice fella who I've been getting stuff & advice from at the local indoor garden center... The specs looked fantastic so I hurried up & ordered one.

I live in Canada, so for folks reading this & worried about the whole border thing.... Well it was interesting to watch the tracking process... to watch it get inspected.... twice! (Mebbe they thought it loooked like a pretty nice set up too!)

Order processed quickly & came through via courier just fine... Delivery prompt.

Customs fees do apply and it was a bit over $200.00, so do be prepared for that... Still with my expectations on how this will improve things for me.... I consider it worth it at this point...

Set up:

I used a grow tent 4x4x6, which I was able to set up despite my mobility issues, on my own.
The light was a bit trickier on my own, but if you're an able-bodied person this should be easy too. Light weighs about 40lbs. I hung it from the framework of the tent using 2 choke collars purchased at the dollar store & safety strepped using a couple of those locking plastic ties... which I also used to secure the electric cords to the top bars. I've got it plugged into a dual outdoor timer and I'm running a 6" fan on a can filter and have a 10 inch oscillating fan to move air. Set up took an afternoon and proly cost me a bit over $2,000 Canuck bucks.

Cuz my old set up didn't hold many plants I had 2 youngun's on hand of the Chronic variety about 6 weeks old and 2 Trainwreck feminized seedlings, just popped.

I've got em on a wee table under the light in centre of the space... Temp is pretty much 23 degrees Celsius (warm room temp) and though a bit low of optimum, I'm happy with that cuz it'll get hotter in there come summer..

So I'm ready to go!

Welcome to the forums!

Eh heh:

I sorry to miss last week entry... Got kinda sick... On the other hand my ladies are glorious!!!

Like I was saying before, in the tent I'm running 6" vent fan & 10 inch oscillating with temp about 23 -25 nice.

My ladies have more than doubled in size since when they went in there...

I'm not the world's best photog, but I've been taking a few snaps...

Harvested the lady growing in my original cabinet... I had one plant in there and I had staked & trained her for maximum areaa open to the light. I got 2 mason jars full of loose airy, but lovely smelling buds.

The way my sweeties are going... I'm gonna get much more than that I sure...

(I try to upload photos, but system won't let me... I change format & try again)

Okay, so here is what I was using before.
3'x18" metal cabinet with some holes drilled in it for fans, electrical cords and ventilation.
Above is 3 - 4 ' high chamber with 150w HPS & a T5 in each corner vertially.
I could grow 1 to 3 plants, but they were stressed.
Below 2' space with 4 t5s for starting seedlings or clones.

I intend to keep using the cabinet as a 'mothership' & nursery for seedlings/clones

Set up of both then tent and the light & vent system was doable by me myself in an afternoon.

After a week, the amount of growth is amazing!
Temps are fine, there is a definite sound with the fans going & everything, but the sound is no greater than a window a/c unit.
Do be careful, the lightbox does get hot.
I kinda branded myself adjusting the vent, but no big.

Another week goes by and OMG, they're already gained another few inches.
I repotted my sweeties into 3 gallon pails & repotted my wee ones... I can't believe how very, very happy my ladies are!

Check out the pretty ladies!

We're starting to have really nice weather here in the "Great White North".
I bin working on my container garden out on my balcony.
Gonna grow food & herbs and some flowers out there.

I just love how calm & peaceful tending my gardens is for my spirit.

I may be real sore afterwards, but to be able to nurture something and watch if flourish under my care goes a long way to heal my wounds of the spirit and make me feel at peace with the world.

Growing is good Medicine.

Growing good Medicine is even better medicine!

So, as far as my indoor Medicine garden is going... I'm still amazed and delighted by how much better my plants are doing under "proper" lighting.

I'm only sorry I didn't get to grow under stronger HPS light to have a good idea how they compare.

But what I can tell you about these LEDs is that they do a fabulous job in veg, they are cooler than the equivalent in HPS lighting. I got good temps in there with an osceillating fan & a 6" fan on the can filter (passively drawing in air through the vent).

I shut down the breakers in there trying to vaccum up some soil & plant debris, so I am now a bit concerned about how I'm gonna run A/C when the weather gets hot... Still thinkin' on that one... I don't have much powere alloted to my little apartment here in central Babylon. I got 3 circuts to run the whole place including fridge & stove. I may have to learn to do without some electronic gadgets.

Meanwhile my Ladies are 18". I took a couple of cuttings off each (these ladies were grown from seed) to root for the next cohort & to graft onto my Mother (a Trainwreck) and now we're going into BLOOM phase. The plants are thick bushy & compact with mutliple branches for lots of blooms to burst out on... In my old cupboard the plants were quite leggy & stretched quite a bit (I guess seeking light cuz what I was running was really not quite enough) I was reading some other posts on the same topic (compact vs stretched out plants) & so I moved the Ladies down to the floor rather than set up another platform in the tent (I don't want to risk collapsing the structure or myself by trying to adjsut the light height in the grow tent). This was the suggestion offered to the other grower, to increase the distance between plant & light to encourage it to stretch... Didn't make much differenxce to my Girls, but I'm happy to give them their head & see where they go with it.

I moved the Trainwrecks out of there & back to the old cupboard to stay in veg til they're taller.

I know two plants is a slow start, but hey! Ya gotta start somewhere. I could do 1 or 2 in the old cupboard. I got two now and I betcha enything that I'll get at least twice the Medicine off these, so I'm still ahead of the previous parameters anyhow...

I got my timer reprogrammed. Then I threw the switch to "Bloom".

I'm looking forward to watching this part of their process under the LEDs!

(I gotta wear shades when I go in there to check em out! Man those lights are bright )

BALLS!!!
Both of my plants popped balls!
One was showing the wee hairy projections between the branches, but we had an emergency in the building which resulted in a water shut off tor 2 days... Also we've had INCREDIBLY warm temps here & they suffered water shortage & high temps at the same time... By the time I got back in to them... They decided they needed to be bois to hang tough I guess...

So, back to the nursery *sigh*
Gonna MAKE these ones wear PINK! Mebbe that'll help...

Actually once I get a crop of medicine I think I'll grow a crop for seed...

Anyhow... I put one Trainwreck back in the tent.
I switched the switch back to "grow"
I put some Big G bebes in dere too... Hopefully ona them will be female...

And in the nursery I started a dozen more seeds...

Hopefully at least some will be girls so I can start using clones...

The other thing... Since the heat is pretty bad up here for some reason (May??? & we got temps over body temprature)
My outdoor plants are kinda stressed too...

The Tomato, cuke, zucch & bean that I stuck in the grow ten is showing larger leaves and healthier growth than the ones out on my balcony & their from the same seed lot!

Now my balcony faces Northwest & I only get sun from mid afternoon on, but when it comes the temps can go up 20 degrees & it's often 10 degrees warmer out there than what the weatherman sez, so it is rathr extreme conditions to grow in, but I usually can get tomatos, greens of various kinds & lots of culinary & medicinal herbs.

So I'm impressed at the performance of these light.
They're easy to use, sturdy & are easy on the power.

So now that I've gone & put some veggies in there I'm wondering if this will be detrimental to my cannabis garden.

I'm becomeing quite intrigued with the idea of fresh herbs, greens & salad veggies throughout the winter AND my own lovingly grown medicine...

Anyone got knowledge, experience or oppinion on the advisability of multiple crops in an indoor garden space (other than the obvious one of more space for veggies = less space for medicine)???

Trainwreck genetics are known to go hermie especially when stressed, I'd look for something else. Bummer...

There are no issues with growing multiple crops together like that other than limited space and ensuring pollination where needed.