First Grow with LED's

Nice man those buds are looking frosty!

Congrats! In the end, did you only flower with one 600 hps in the 4x8 tent? What kind of reflector did you use?

Thanks for keeping us updated--i've enjoyed reading your posts

Thanks Buddha! Your butter and cookies looked awesome too!
Thank you as well dankog- I appreciate the congrats though am still hoping I don't blow
harvest! To answer your question: Yes, we're under 1 600 hps in the 4X8.
Next round I'll have 2 600's in there but still need electrical work to make that happen.
The electrician that showed up last week never got back to us with his license info
so we're still searching on that front. I keep thinking of Scotty on the USS Enterprise-
"I need more power Captain!"
The hood is a Daystar AC by Hydrofarm- I'll try to include it in a pic when next I post.
We're not yet using the AC tubing vents as the heat is needed in the basement area here where the tents reside.

Still trying to determine if it's soup yet.
When I zoom on these photo's, the trichs still look
mostly clear to me. Also, the red hairs have not yet started coming in toward the bud. I'm certainly open to input but am thinking another week as fdd2blk estimated when I asked in his thread- putting me at Jan.3 for harvest.
Got a lead on an electrician and will try and schedule tomorrow
Pics from tonight:

It's looking really good . Are you sure you need more power in there? (Is it because you want to put in more plants next time?) these pics look really nice

Thanks dankog-
We probably could make do with what we have but
I think 2 600's would have increased our yield with more light penetration- more light per plant.
I think it would have also decreased our chances of powdery mildew with less shaded areas.

Closing in on our projected Jan.3 date.
I'm focusing on checking trichs with zoomed photos and looking for the
amber tinge to the leaves mainly.
One plant in particular may be ahead of the rest of the pack:
This plant we've called T5 was obtained as a Trinity strain but I'm wondering if it
might be some other. It was the fastest and strongest in veg but frankly just
doesn't look like any of the others in the tent. Shouldn't the buds appear similar on the same strain?

A few other tops and sides here of Trinity and American Dream:


Scheduled an electrician for later this week. Glad to be upgrading some of that here and am again excited about the prospect of flowering under 2 lights for the next cycle.

The plants in the veg tent appear to be thriving after their trim/FIM last week.
I'll post some pics of that tent later this week....

Can hardly believe it's been a week since I logged on here...
Started harvesting today and doing it as part of an extended dark stretch
that began this morning. Manicuring is a tedious process for me so
it may take a few days to finish.
The veg tent is running strong with now 6 180watt LED's.
I'll be looking to do some cloning w/in the next couple weeks and also
want to improve staking with this batch- before they get too big.
Did get our electrical upgraded and I'm looking forward to trying the 2 600's
this time to flower.
Still haven't made the time for pics but will within the next few days.
Happy New Year by the way!

I've been using the same UFO LED lights for my first grows. The much lower power consumption and cool operation are attractive. An authoritative grow expert told me that LED lights lack some of the colors that help make the buds good and dense. I should expect fluffy buds. He recommended changing lights to HPS for the flowering period. Maybe a less dense bud is an acceptable tradeoff for the efficiency, temperature and longevity of an LED. That's a personal decision, but it would seem killer weed needs warm lights.

The same expert says sunlight still has enough light frequencies to add about 3% higher THC potency. A grower whose crops are routinely lab tested verified the 3% THC boost from sunlight.

Thanks for looking and your thoughts goldscribe.
The LED's have worked great for us in veg. The biggest handicap
we've had thus far is simply being new and inexperienced- dialing in climate, learning a new vocabulary , lighting, etc. I feel very green- no pun intended.



Meanwhile- work in progress....

Can't believe it's been a week since posting- a lot going on.
Here's the week in pics:
Filled the dry rack essentially on Monday


Curing started late week.
Still a few jars to fill as the rack still has a couple full shelves to go


Preliminary Potency Tests are positive and may be why I haven't been here all week...

Meanwhile we have switched out the lights in the flower tent after a thorough clean:


And 2nd batch will be moved tomorrow


They're on a regular Serenade/ Azamax regimen.

Lastly- taken this week


Hope all's well out there in RIU land!

And away we grow...

Sorry to bump an old thread, but those plants look AWESOME under that purple light.

Thanks for looking Agent-
Veg went well for us the first time, too. The LED's do well with that it seems.
We encountered most of our troubles in flower; I'm hoping I've learned a few things in the past few months
and to make the next 60 days pass without crisis!

Just a quick update of growth the past week:
2 of the clones are just starting to show roots and I'm hoping a few more will follow over the next few days.

The tent is getting crowded already even though we've been pruning regularly.
Did this way too late last time.

I think our overall set up is better this round. Increased light, decreased humidity, better ventilation, regular Azamax/ Serenade treatments. While there is still lots to learn, I don't feel like such nervous parent as much this round...we'll see...

a

Sorry if I missed it but are you sticking with HPS for flowering or are you going to use LED's all the way through? I run 600w hps in a 4' x 4' area but was planning to make the full switch to LEDs, strictly to reduce my bill and not have to deal with heating issues this summer. But I don't want to make the switch if I run the possibility of losing the dense nuggets that took me 9 months to achieve...

Thanks and great thread!

Thanks Bajafox and yes, we're only using the LED's for veg right now.
Our first flower was done under only 1 600 and we've since added another in our 4x8.
Other growers seem to be doing well with some high quality LED's, but I suspect they have a lot more experience than I do.
I agree too, that for us the risk outweighs the cost savings for electricity. Our's spiked when we started up the HPS and of course has
increased with adding a second. I wrote a few months back that I might try doing an all LED grow at some point but, for now, I
think I need some more experience getting the basics down.
Thanks again for looking and good luck with yours!

During flowering, are you using both LED and HPS, or just HPS for flowering?

I'm trying to mix it up right now...the 28w LED from Sunshine Systems has been working *great* for vegging, btw--I've been blown away by how effective that light has been for low little wattage it is.

Just wondering how the flowering went for you

Great job on your grow! Looks great

Hi Dankog and thanks for stopping by.
The flower tent is just the 2 HPS 600's. I've considered adding a couple of the the LED's but am limited by space
in the tent to really hang effectively. I'm glad yours is working well.
We're still curing our first harvest and as yet have not taken any weights.
For our first grow and considering the troubles we ran into, I'm glad we were able to get what we did.
We have about 20 mason jars. The buds are still greener than I expected them to be. We're just taking our time with curing and trying to do it right. Seems like powerful medicine. One jar each here shown of American Dream and Trinity:


Good luck with yours!

Just a cpl pics of the week's progress:


The tallest is at about 38" (from the top of the soil.)

A few clones planted- hopefully a few more this week: