LED Grow Light Forum

Hey KosherKing here bringing you a RDWC 6 site MMJ grow. I just got everything set up and working correctly with no leaks. My garden consists of a 4x4 secret Jardin tent with a Solarstorm 400W LED. I'm going to be doing 6 different strains consisting of OG #18,Kings Kush,Purple Wreck,Skywalker OG,Cannalope Kush, and Kosher Kush. Using all Fox farm Hydro nutes. Seeds are on the way.

Welcome to the forums!

315-ish watts is pretty small for a 4x4 (16 sqft) tent and you'll end up with different sized plants since your planning on using 6 different genetics from seed. Luckily, since you plan in flowering 6 plants you'll have to flower while they're short or you'll end up way overcrowded. Are you sure that's how you want to run it? Results will suffer but it is, of course, up to you.


SME

My setup

If you put the controller bucket outside of the tent it would keep your nutrients cooler and leave more space for plants under the light but that would require more hose too. It'd be worth it in the long run, with your current design the controller is under the best part of the light and it will be warmer. Just something to consider...

Welcome to the forum KosherKing! I like your ambitious setup!

SME is giving you good advice regarding your control bucket. In my experience the SolarStorm 400 has a pretty small light footprint that conforms pretty tightly to its physical footprint, so you really want to get your plants right under the light. At the very least I would swap lids and make one of your corner buckets the control bucket.

I would also caution you against growing from seed under an LED. Plants grown from seed must be vegged until they show sex otherwise you risk stressing them and possibly ending up with hermaphroditic plants. In my experience it takes about a month to veg them until they show sex, and 6x 1 month old plants from seed will give you a 2' deep jungle. This will require expert pruning and training for the SolarStorm to be able to reach all of the growth tips due to the LED's inability to penetrate past a few inches of dense canopy at full flower. Of course, none of this applies if you are using autoflowers, in which case you should cram those buckets together as close as you can and maybe even ditch the control bucket.

I think you'll find that with lower powered lights you're much better off growing one or two big healthy plants than a bunch of big plants that are mostly stem and leaf due to improper lighting conditions. My SS400 test demonstrated to me that these lights really can't penetrate past 5" of dense canopy at full flower, so any lower branches are going to end up sucking up extra nutrients and only producing leafy popcorn buds. The best thing you can do is to gear your whole garden toward focusing light on as many growth tips as possible, while eliminating those that aren't receiving enough light (the ones that are stretching below the canopy). Only the growth tips with a front-row seat will produce dense buds under LED. YMMV as they say...

You might consider a 1 or 2 plant (1 plant is better IMO) SCROG grow. 1 plant bucket with 2 control buckets would work great for this kind of setup.

Hope this helps, and I can't wait to see the rest of your journal!

I agree with most of what beefxer said but I wouldn't get rid of the controller bucket and good genetics shouldn't go hermie over just a little light stress from flowering early. Train Wreck and it's offspring do have more hermie tendencies though, 310w wont give a very big foot print if you want good results.

Keep the updates coming!

Bah, you RDWC guys and your control buckets.

jk I might be joining you soon with a DIY RDWC setup once I get co2 enrichment implemented to my satisfaction. I really like the idea of having the larger substrate volume that RDWC can offer, but I'm not quite convinced that it is worth the decreased portability and additional cost, complexity, electricity (water pump), and labor (cleaning) over my current single-bucket DWC setup. Still, I can't resist tinkering and testing new stuff. Especially when it means spending money on fancy nutrient dosers etc.

You've never had a unsexed plant go hermie from a short photoperiod, SME? Seems to strike every time for me, but hermie traits do tend to vary from strain to strain. Any kind of stress can cause hermaphrodites though, so I just err on the side of caution whenever I can. Nothing ruins my day like finding bananas on a lady after months of nurturing!

The controller is just one extra bucket/res to clean, it's not that much more maintenance and the additional fluid capacity makes up for that. Proper design can minimize some of the portability issues, small water pumps use very little electricity and dosers aren't required.

I've had some over the years but I can't say that genetics weren't to blame. Good genetics should be resistant and it should take quite a bit of stress to make them herm out. Many people flower early, just to determine sex, and them put them back in veg to grow them out before cloning or taking a mother. Mother plants get pretty stressed when forced to veg, often root bound to keep them small, for extended periods. I've kept 1 mother plant for 3 years and it never went hermie nor did her clones. Minimizing stress is always good but good genetics should be able to handle mild short term stress.

YMMV...

The way I look at it each little bit of cost, complexity, labor, etc adds up over years of operation. Upgrading to larger buckets gives you all the benefits of a larger reservoir and none of the drawbacks of RDWC (I'm running that test right now ).

Dosers aren't required obviously but they sure do look like fun to play with. tbh I prefer to mix my reservoir manually and drain to waste, but when I start imagining a 20kw RDWC grow with fancy automation I go to my happy place.

You might be right about the hermies. I can't find the source to back up my claim so it's admittedly anecdotal. I still contend that stressing a plant prior to sexual maturity is not advisable as a matter of SOP.

Anyways, we're hijacking the journal! Can't wait to see more KosherKing!

KosherKing is back and I want to say thanks for all of your opinions but don't worry I got this under control guys I'm a pretty experienced grower. 2 seeds including kings kush and purple wreck did not make it and were replaced by OG Kush and Headband.