I’m currently using a 600w Viparspectra led and I think I have bleached my seedlings. Wanted to see what the best hanging height for light would be for this light. Also it has dimmable capability from 0-100 what’s a good number to have for the intensity of the light. Thanks in advance.
600w Viparspectra Help
- Thread starter NewGrow91
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kratos015
Well-Known Member
Can you get us some pictures going? They'll be incredibly helpful for us to give proper advice.
Without pictures, all I can do is guess but I have a few ideas. It's likely the "bleaching" you're experiencing is actually nutrient burn. It's quite common for people starting out, they water every day (or multiple times a day even) and it causes a wide variety of problems.. especially for seedlings. Seedlings don't need much water or nutrients. If you're planting seedlings into something "hot" like Fox Farm's Ocean Forest you're almost guaranteed to burn your plants with excess nutrients.
Unless you have that LED light directly against your seedlings, no way you're experiencing bleaching on your seedlings with a light that's only 230w. Stick with full intensity, and consider grabbing another one of those lights for flower. Those lights are notoriously mediocre, at best, but they'll work.
They are about 12 days old and had the light about 25 inches from plants. I started them in canna coco and mixed dr.earth multipurpose with a little dr earth bloom to start them out. This was all mixed together when first planting and I only give Ph water between 6.5-6.8
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yummy fur
Well-Known Member
Oh okay so the yellowing is not a problem for my girls? I raised the light about 5inches as I was told it was to close and was bleaching them?
yummy fur
Well-Known Member
Correct that is not a problem, and it is not an indication of a problem. You will be told endless bullshit, get used to it, best to take advice from people who can show you the money. It's all very confusing now and you may think everyone knows what they are doing but mostly it's just pretence. If you follow my sig link you can decide whether or not to trust my judgement.
Awesome!!! Well you seem to know your stuff so I’m going with you!!! New to growing and just need a little help along the way. For 12 days old do they look good and healthy I have three autoflowers.
yummy fur
Well-Known Member
Autos, great, I only grow autos they are a lot of fun, and always a surprise.
Great!!! This is my first time with them. So they looking good to you so far then?
kratos015
Well-Known Member
Poster above me is right, little to no issues here. When you said "bleaching" I was imagining literal bleaching, leaves drying/shriveling up and turning a white/bleach color. This is not the case here fortunately! I mean this respectfully when I say this, but whoever told you what you're seeing is "bleaching" is someone you shouldn't take advice from anymore. Bleaching is called that for a reason, the leaves will have the exact same color as a black shirt will when you dump bleach on it.
The soil you're using, as well as the amendments are absolutely golden. I top dress with Dr Earth "Organic Tomato and Herb" religiously, Dr Earth makes great products. What you're seeing here is a very slight nutrient toxicity that will surely correct itself in the next 2-4 weeks, and don't be alarmed when I say "toxicity" either. You see the different shades of green? The dark shades of green indicate excess nitrogen to the plant itself. When I say excess nitrogen, I mean for the plant and not your soil. If you planted a clone in the Dr Earth amended soil then you likely would not be seeing the different shades of green. That's because the plant is more mature and thus capable of actually in-taking that nitrogen.
The soil and amendments you used are absolutely perfect.. except for seedlings. Fortuantely, since you went with Dr. Earth organic amendments these "issues" will dissipate within a matter of weeks once the plant gets big enough to actually handle all of those nutrients. Seedlings are like babies. Steak and milk are both sources of protein right? But a baby cannot ingest steak until they get teeth first, so you need to feed with milk until the teeth come in. Then you can start adding steak into the diet, with milk of course! A mediocre example, but hopefully it conveys the point!
In the future, if you start from seed like this, I'd recommend starting the seeds in the soil without amending it with Dr Earth products. Once the seedlings grow to ~1ft tall, simply top dress with the exact same Dr Earth products and you won't see your seedlings have such a dark shade of green. But again, that dark shade of green will disappear in a matter of weeks once the plant gets big enough to actually absorb all of those nutrients. Once your seedlings become ~1ft tall you likely won't see the dark shade of green anymore. Sounds like you only have 2 plants too, yes? You want 50-60w per sqft, so that Viparspectra light will actually be enough light for two plants. If you can afford it, I'd actually recommend grabbing another one of those Viparspectra lights in the next 4-6 weeks once the plants are over 1ft tall. Don't get me wrong, the light you have can take care of those two plants, but if you get one light per plant then you'll boost your yields for sure.
tl;dr: You're fine, keep at it and you'll be well on your way to a good harvest. Literally the only things I can recommend here would be to top dress with the same Dr Earth products every 4 weeks or so, give or take depending on what the plant tells you. I'm seeing no signs of problems here and they look just as they should for ~2 weeks. Like I tell everyone, post a grow journal in case you find yourself having more questions in the future. Even if you don't, journals are immensely useful to go back to. Having a grow journal makes troubleshooting any issues that arise extremely simple, especially since you have an entire community of people helping you out.
yummy fur
Well-Known Member
Yeah they look awesome. You can check out my very first auto grow which was the OG Kush that you can find at the grow diaries link in my sig, I used a viparspectra 600W funnily enough, I pretty well just drew on my own past experience. Check out the day 50 scrog, it's looks pretty dire, I confess I was worried that I wouldn't even get two zips. I ended up with 13 zips of dynamite bud and every plant has been completely different but they all start with the same pattern. At around day 14 you'll begin to see some action as the stem begins to thicken.
Autos respond very well to being topped, and if you have more than one I would recommend that you top at least one because it's the only way you'll learn. You have to discover all this stuff for yourself, but autos are a real adventure. I've grown three beans from the same sealed packet in identical conditions with 3 different results. In fact in my DIY shallow water culture grow, those two beans are in the same pot, with the same light and the same nutes, they came from the same packet.
If you really love the plant, then you're golden.
Thanks for all of this helpful info. You guys are great so since you said you have used the Viparspectra as well how far did you decide to hang your light and did yours have the dimming capability? One more thing since I amended already when planting seed when should I top dress again? Just don’t want to do it to early and mess up.
kratos015
Well-Known Member
This guy speaks the truth. Fucking something up is a good thing because then you have experience that you can fall back on and know what you need to correct. You'll only fuck up so many times until eventually there are zero fuck ups. Some people do it in a few grows, others it takes years. Constantly strive for improvement and you can't go wrong!
Look at top dressing like you do watering, take it easy at first but increase things as the plant/root mass increases. Seedings I use a simple mix of peat moss, worm castings/compost, and perlite and nothing else. Once they're 1ft tall I start top dressing every 2-4 weeks depending on the strain/size of the plant. Beautiful thing about organics is that it's pretty tough to overdo nutrients.
My guess is you've got Alfalfa Meal and/or cottonseed meal in the Dr Earth mixes, good ingredients but they decompose quickly. Quickly decomposing nitrogen=immediately available nitrogen, this is why only seedlings will show slight signs of toxicity, because the nitrogen is readily available but the plant isn't able to actually absorb all of it because it's too small. Don't be afraid of messing up though, not only do the plants look good but I can tell you've done your due diligence too so you should be just fine my man. The only way you can overdo Dr Earth nutrients is if you took an entire bag of the stuff and made a concentrated tea out of it and watered with that, aside from that the only thing that can stop you now is bugs/pests.
Great!!! I was thinking something was done totally wrong and I was going to lose them. So should I wait another 2 weeks or longer to top dress since there is a little toxicity going on now? Here is a few pics of them at the moment
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yummy fur
Well-Known Member
I'm not a soil person so I'll leave that to others, hydro and autos are a match made in heaven. Actually I had the PAR700W yeah it had 3 dimmable controls for red white and blue and I can tell you don't get too caught up in worrying about spectrum or height as long as you don't go too close, keep at least 18" away. But you're killing it right now. So kick back, relax and watch how slowly the days pass while you're waiting for her to do stuff. Autos do like the blue viparspectras.
One of my favourite parts of the grow is sometime between week 2 and 3 where the stem begins to stop looking like noodle and sheds it's skin.
kratos015
Well-Known Member
Not at all, they look healthy and standard. The 2-4 weeks thing is dependent on a few factors; the size of the plant, the strain (if it's a heavy feeder or not), and what you're top dressing with. Those Dr Earth mixes are usually pretty light and won't burn like Blood Meal or Guano will. Wait at least another 4-6 weeks until you top dress again. This is because you've already amended the soil, and because the plants are only seedlings right now. Once your plants are over 1ft tall you can top dress again, at that point simple evaluate your plant and listen to what it's telling you.
What I personally do is start my clones/seedlings in a simple mix of peat, perlite, and compost. Only amendments I use at that time are kelp and neem meals, and something for minerals (Basalt, Glacial Rock Dust, or Azomite if nothing else is available). Once the plants get to be over 1ft tall, I top dress them with a Dr. Earth mix and cover that with compost. I like Dr Earth LIFE for veg (5-5-5) and Dr Earth Tomato and Herb for flower (4-6-5). I'm finally making my own compost, but when I don't have my own compost I buy a bag of Coast of Maine's Lobster Compost on Amazon. During veg, I top dress every 3-4 weeks on average with my Dr Earth, Neem, and Kelp Meals, then cover it all with compost. During flower, I top dress every 2-3 weeks with the same stuff.. just Dr Earth Tomato and Herb instead of LIFE.
It isn't just plant size that will be dictating the amount of feedings, it's all strain dependent. Some strains are heavy feeders and can be pushed hard and fed every 1-2 weeks. Other strains will get pissy at you for over-feeding. Fortunately, you're using amendments that aren't hot so you likely won't run into many issues with over-feeding. It's only because the plants are still seedlings that you're experiencing this. Seriously, just keep doing what you're doing and you'll be golden once they get over 1ft tall my man.
The back of the bags should have some detailed instructions on how much to apply for the size of the plant or pot. For example, it'll say something like 1/4c per 1ft of plant height, or 1/4c per 5g soil, or something like that. It will then tell you how often to apply, usually every 2-4 weeks.
Sorry to be long winded, it's a weakness of mine, but I just prefer to explain what I'm saying to people rather than just saying something and providing no information.
Okay great thanks for all of this. I don’t mind at all I enjoy getting as much in depth details as I can get. Strains I’ve got right now is a gorilla glue and Girl Scout cookie from fast buds and the other which is the smallest out of the three is creamatic by royal queen seeds
Mariosehr
Well-Known Member
18-24 inches of light, get you some cal mag(for deficiency’s) I have a viperspectra also, on second grow currently(900w)...I grow with both switches on, not sure if your models does as well. I grew in pro mix, this time around I’m using coco and pearlite...your looking good...
