LED Grow Light Forum

My lights arrived approx.3 weeks ago, so I'm already behind in my reporting.

I was given 5 Sour Diesel clones about 15" tall and spindly which went into a 2x2 tent awaiting their new home to be made ready. They waited under a 180w veg Blackstar for about a week where they smelled up the whole house.

My grow room is 9'x6'x7' with a 4'x6' table in the middle of the room drain to waste. 378 cu feet.
There is an 18,000 BTU mini split AC unit situated about 5.5' up the short wall opposite the door.
The old lighting was 4 600 watt HPS lights with reflectors, uncooled that delivered decent yields (at least I was happy), but they also delivered mega heat and huge power bills. The room is basically sealed, and has co2 delivered at around 1200 ppm.
My watering system is very sophisticated. It consists of a deep sink and a 2 1/2 gallon watering can.
There is a 24" oscillating floor fan and and a small dehumidifier.

I grow in coco with about 30-35% perlite and coco coir cubes for drainage in 5 gallon nursery pots.
My new lights are:
1 800w solar storm
1 400 w solar storm (probably should have gone with 2 of the big ones)

What I want from this little adventure is a clean uncomplicated, consistent grow. Normally, I ran 12- 15 plants, but this time I wanted fewer to keep variables to a minimum.
So far the folks at California Lightworks have been great and the product coming out of the box was well built and attractive.
Well here we go! Not bad for a 65 year old........... ROCK ON.

Welcome to the forums!


I think you should have gone with the 2x800w lights too. What kind of yield were you getting with the 4x600w uncooled HPS grows? I know you will have less heat in the grow room now but you'll also have a LOT less watts per sqf too so that will certainly mean less yield.

On the up side you'll run your AC and water less...


SME

Good Morning!

The girls are asleep right now. They had a very productive night (lights are on from 9PM to 9AM). I always like to look in just before the lights cycle, and give them some care. Past runs have produced from 1 1/2 to 3 lbs. Best ever was just shy of 54 oz. Of course that was a different strain, White Widow. Twelve plants, and all my equipment was brand new. They were stout and beautiful from beginning to end. I think there were 5 600w lights in there then. The AC cranked constantly and I couldn't sleep at night for fear of burning the house down! Three months utility bills were around $1500, ouch. At one time, I lost control of the heat in there and temps went up to 125. Can you say PANIC?

I hope that this run can pull close to a lb. If it does I'll scale up a little and be happy. I like big plants. If not, then it'll be air cooled hoods w 3000 watt HPS. I just do not want to cut 6" holes in my stucco. Like you SME I'm not a true believer in these or any LEDs, but I'm willing to invest some time for first hand information. BTW, I use mostly FHD nutes (Holland's Secret) and something called Insect Frass. Temps are pretty constant between 73 and 81 degrees, humidity between 45 and 60%.

Interesting...with 3kw HID you were only pulling in around .25 to .52 grams per watt. I assume that's due to using soil and non-cooled 600w HPS instead of something bigger and cooler. As I'm sure you know, the SS 800 isn't really putting out 800w in veg or flower nor does the 400 put out 400w. They actually only use around 620w/310w in flower. In order to get 1 pound (which is obviously possible) off your two new lights and 930w of power you'd need to grow around 464 grams or .5g/w but you should be able to get that just off the larger light. The best LED grow I've seen here so far only got .86g/w but the best HID grows I've seen were well over 1g/w too.

I'm looking forward to seeing how you do...

OK SME, now I know what is good and what is not. Not that I can change much now. Basically, I am a very simple guy and somehow these lights appeal to me for that reason. I've still got all of my HID equipment in storage, just in case I shit the bed with this run.
I've had some concerns with purple petioles and brown spots, and the first thing I wanted to do was to blame the lights. Vented heat and different stuff came to mind, but Ed Rosenthal's books have given me my answer. I was using tap water (simple yes, smart no!) although I have an RO filter setup and 50 gals of RO just outside my growroom door. Don't ask. There is no way to know what is in the tap water day to day, beside ppm and PH (>450 & 6.5). Long story short, I believe that Ca and Mg will correct the problem, see simple. I've let these girls get too big and I fear that may lead to some problems in a few weeks. I did have an epiphany? though. Why not use my dehumi water in my watering can? Same numbers as RO water.
I know that a few brown spots is no BIG deal but..........................

Thanks for listening.......ROCK ON!

I think you can get that pound, maybe more...I'm just saying that you're cutting back, by more than half, the light you were running.

Yeah, my tap water tastes good but it's not great for the plants either so I use RO and dehumidifier water...

Here are a few pix to give you an idea of my setup. Pretty self explanatory.

more pix....pretty tall.

last one... Out the door.