LED Grow Light Forum

High Everyone,
Gonna be switching my current grow over to the SS400 for a flowering test as part of their GFP. Just waiting on it to get here. Here's what I've got going on now:
a Sweet Tooth and a Chiesel in a DIY rDWC tub. contents of tub are: 2 5 inch round airstones from a aquarium airpump, a 600gph pump into a simple PVC "T" waterfall and a wort chiller. the wort chiller is connected to an external res with a 1/10 hp chiller keeping it around 65F.
they are 3 weeks from clone. the ST is doing really well. the Chiesel has been slow to take off. i tried this strain a year ago and it was tough going then too.
Lights are 2 400 watt CMH hung vertically (1 w/ wing reflector) off to the sides of the tub.
Pics will be up soon.
Gonna be switching over to 12/12 in a few days. Will be 3.5 weeks of Veg.

Welcome to the forums!


SME

Sixth day into flower and the SS 400 arrived. All HID's out of grow room with just one small CFL to help me see. It is 18 inches above canopy.

Will be monitoring temps in grow room. With the 2 bulbs and ballasts gone, it should be much lower. I like about a 10 to 15 degree swing from lights on to lights off.

Nutes are Ionic. 40mL for 10 gallons for first 2 weeks of flower. Water is RO from Wally-world.

That's about it. I used the same setup for my last grow with the only difference being strains. The main variable that is different is the light so this should be a fairly accurate comparison between HID and LED.

Let the solar storm begin.........

and for those of you looking, the dead/dying old fan leaves are not a problem. The new growth and the roots look fantastic.

AMENDED: THERE ARE MORE DISCOLORING LEAVES THAN I REALIZED. THANKS TO S.M.E. FOR NOTICING THE PROBLEM!! WILL BE HOPEFULLY FIXED COME MORNING.

What are your pH, PPM/EC levels at?

Hey SME,

I use EC so it's at 0.35 right now.

And pH is yellow. I only use indicator drops. I started out 3 yrs ago as a pH freak and was constantly up and down with it. Got tired of chasing the pH fairy if you know what I mean.

With the Ionic nutes and RO water , with a fresh batch of nutes it's at a dark yellow and progresses to light green as the nutes are used up. I top off with nutes and water which gets my pH back down in the yellows until it's time for a res change.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

.35 EC = ~225-250 ppm which seems a little low for late veg/early flower but you don't want to swing too high and start burning stuff either.

I had to dig up my old drop chart.
If the pH is too low or too high you can lockout nutrients like calcium and magnesium.

While you don't have to constantly chase pH; for DWC you want it under 6 (yellow) and above 5.5 with 5.8 (dark-yellow) being a good target. If you're getting to light green you're WAY too high. The secret to not chasing pH up and down is adding just a small amount of up or down at a time and letting it mix well for a while before adding more. In your case, when you get to almost yellow, you should add a few drops of down until it gets dark yellow again. One or two pH adjustments between reservoir changes isn't that bad. A more accurate meter might help you too but that is another expense.

YMMV...

yeah, as for EC, I've never gotten close to 1.0 in DWC even in late flower. I used to be of the mindset that more must be better and burned a lot of leaf tips in the beginning. But usually a 50% nute load is max for me at end of flower. I'm at 20 percent now and nice green tips.

maybe I've been lucky but my last 3 grows I never used up or down. it seems like the swing from dark yellow to light green has been OK for me. I really think the RO water is the key. I'd recommend it to anybody with DWC especially. and with first using the lucas formula with GH nutes and now the Ionic nutes , I am gonna stick with what works for me. not trying to sell anybody on any nute line either. it's like preferring shell over exxon. both are gonna get you to where you are going.

more pix to come..............