LED Grow Light Forum

Hello everyone,
I received my solar storm 400 Friday as part of the growers feedback program. The light was well packaged and took a week to travel coast to coast via UPS, not bad considering it was shipped during the Christmas rush.

Here are the components of my grow:

One SS400
Growlab GL120 4x4 tent
One Myco2 mushroom bag
One oscillating fan mounted to the roof of the tent
One electric oil radiator
General hydroponics nutrients

It is winter in New England, and the tent is set up in my basement, which seems to hold a fairly consistent 60°F.
So far, I have achieved temps of 70° on the floor of the tent with the light and circulating fan. The oil heater will supplement when the light is off.
Today is day one of the test.
I had 3 mongrel plants that were given to me as a gift that I have been vegging under T5s for the past month. To be honest, they are larger than recommended. I tied them all down, LST fashion, a week ago, when they hit 12" and have been trying to stall them until the light arrived. In spite of my efforts, they are all slightly taller than 12" on day one of flower. Nothing I can do about that now, so under the light they went! I am running the SS400 at 20" above median plant height. The plants are placed in a staggered line, and coverage appears to be acceptable, although they do appear slightly crowded. Once they start reacting to the new environment, I will adjust accordingly. I've got my fingers crossed.

Welcome!

Always nice to have more grows, feel free to ask any questions we are all here to help.


How much space are you utilizing of your 4x4?
What kind of air exchange are you using?
Are you growing in soil or hydro?
Which GH nutes?


You've got the right idea shorter is definitely better, scrog is probably optimal or SOG but I don't think I've seen a full comparison grow of the two.

Since you have co2 your daytime temp can be closer to 80-85 degrees from what I have read.

For nutes, I was running the 1-1-1 root booster, 4-3-3 veg(forget the proper name) and one cal mag treatment two weeks ago. As mentioned, I was trying to hold the plants back, so flushed them a week ago and have only been giving them minimal water for the past week.
On the advice of my local grow shop, due to the low heat value of the light, I was trying to go without forced ventilation, but day one in the tent has shown a serious spike in humidity. I just placed a dehumidifier in the tent an hour ago and will be checking it shortly.

The plants are in tall 5 gallon "space saver" pots. Same diameter as a standard 3 gallon. And I am growing them in happy frog organic potting mix.

The 3 plants take up one side of the 4x4.

I've been using the 1-1-1 root booster and 4-3-3 veg nutes, as well as cal/mag as necessary.
As mentioned, I was trying to slow things down, so flushed the plants a week ago and have given minimal watering since.
The plants are potted with happy frog potting mix in 5 gal tallboy pots.
On the advice of my local grow store, I was going to try flowering without forced ventilation, but day one has shown the humidity spiking through the roof. I've placed a dehumidifier in the tent for now, set to run on a two hour cycle, and will be checking it shortly.

The plants take up one side of the tent, with the heater and dehumidifier occupying the other half.

Daily you should be able to move your SS closer to the plants but that's totally up to you, it may bring an increase in temperature a few degrees. Looks like they are going to be monsters by the time your done. It's hard to tell though with out knowing the genetics. Btw it's hard to tell what they look like in the purple/pinkish glow from the SS, some pics of them under normal lighting always helps but I never get tired of alien looking environments either lol

Sadly, I have no idea what the mongrels are, but I figured I'd start off with them just to get a feel for the whole set up. I did take clones, just in case they turn out to be noteworthy.
I still have a blue cheese/haze cross and a blue dream in the veg room that I plan to keep as mothers for subsequent grows.
Long term plan is to SCROG 4 at a time under two ss400s in the 4x4 tent. With that set up I should have good coverage and beam overlap for penetration.
I think once the dominant colas identify themselves, I will try to trim these plants back a little to keep things tidy. Either that, or I will keep roping them down to keep the canopy as even as I can. We will see. It's not an ideal situation, but life hardly ever is.
I turned one of the two heater elements on at close to the lowest setting of the thermostat. Tent is currently running 75-80° and humidity has so far reduced to 50%.
I did give them a pretty heavy watering once I got them in there this morning, which I think contributed to the heavy spike.

Seems reasonable. Keep on keeping on...

Well, first night went ok. Night time temps of 75°. Daytime temps hovering in the low to mid 80s. degumidifier seems to be keeping things in check. I have it set to 50%. I think opening the tent twice a day will also contribute. Plants are springing back to life, with noticeable growth overnight. Lowered the light one inch.
First feeding in flower tomorrow morning.
Included is a bad photo of the plants with the light off, I haven't put a work light in the tent yet, so this is purely with flash.

The plants have been under the light for a week. The dehumidifier wasn't cutting it, but the humidity problem has been solved with the addition of a 6" can fan running 15min on/15min off during daylight hours, and 15 on/30 off at night. Plants have been growing without issue, with lots of new growth. Interestingly, plants #1 and #2(front and center in photograph) have been bushing out, with tight 1" node spacing, while plant #3, located in the rear of the photo, has shown spacing up to 4"!
Different plant, maybe, or could it be the location in the tent? The light is centered over all three, with the center plant showing less vertical growth than the other two, which I guess is to be expected.
I added a 40w cfl on the other side of the tent as a work light, which is connected to the same timer as the CLW, but at a distance from the plants that it adds little, if anything, to their growth.
I find that even the reflected light from the CLW dazzles my eyes and makes me dizzy if I spend any length of time working in the tent with it on. Luckily, it doesn't seem to affect the plants that way at all.

Sorry, here's the pic of all three, a bit dark but you get the idea