First time DIY LED grow

I have a friend who has a CA medical card that allows him up to 99 plants. After talking with him about it for many years he finally decided to try growing instead of buying his medicine at the clubs. My background is in reef aquariums and I have built hundreds of LED lights for other people over the years. I also know my way around tools, electronics, and have dabbled many years ago with closet grows with 5G DWC buckets. He financed the build and I built it all for him. Total cost to this point has been about $1200. His biggest reason for not growing in the past has been the electric bill that comes with it. I made a promise to him, which was I could build a grow box that would take less power than a single 400w MH when everything is running. It is taking 320w total as of today according to a Kill-a-Watt meter, so I accomplished that part. The other promise that is still in progress because we have quite a bit of learning to do, is I promised him the box could grow 1lb per harvest. I strongly believe it is possible with the setup, but it certainly isn't going to happen on the first grow. I told him it would probably take 4 grows before that is possible as we learn from our mistakes.

Box is 8'x3'x6', but sectioned off so the flower area is about 5'x3'x5' of usable area. The right hand side is for clones and vegging. Using rubbermaid containers with airstones for both flower and veg. Water I make with my 7 stage RO/DI I use for my aquarium, so it is 0 TDS starting. Today we are half way through week 4 of flower. GH nutes used at a 1:1:1 ratio (not sure if that is correct, just following advice I read by some old timer that swears that works) plus we are adding Cal-Mag at a 5ml per gallon and 2.5ml of H202 in top off water since we started flowering. I have a Hanna Gro Check meter from years past to check parameters. I have calibrated it to ensure it is accurate. PPM @ 620, ec .88, pH 5.8-6.0 (daily swing), temp 68-75, humidity running high still at around 65% today. Going to do a little more tweaking to the ventilation to see if I can bring the humidity down. Right now we have 250cfm coming in the box with fresh air, and 300cfm venting outside. I plan on bumping that up to 500cfm output this weekend.

Strains are Girl Scout Cookie, OG XXX, Skywalker OG, Platinum OG, and Master Kush bought as clones from 2 dispensaries in Los Angeles. We have some other strains in veg for the next cycle.

On to the pictures.. wish they were a little better but my iPod doesn't take the best pictures.

Lighting is 98 LEDs on 1-1/4" channel aluminum with 2 fans that keep them cool and provide lots of air on the canopy. I used Cree for royal blue, 630nm, and warm whites, OSRAM for 660nm, and whatever LEDgroupbuy.com sells for 420nm, 430nm, and 445nm. I also had some multi-chip china LEDs that were 2 diodes on each star, one 640nm and the other 650nm. 7 Meanwell 700mA constant current drivers (14 LEDs per driver) used to run the lights. So the spectrum the light covers is 410nm-670nm. Veg side has 14 LEDs on 1 driver, heavy in the blue spectrum. Clones have 2 11w screw in LED grow lights that I bought as a test for my aquarium filtration but found out it was too weak for that, but seems good for clones.


The box is 2x4's and plywood, painted with Kilz and lined with mylar.




And here is what the plants look like from 3 days ago with the lights on








and today after doing some trimming of lower leaves over the last 3 days and turning the lights off for a few pictures.








And suggestions/comments/criticisms are welcome. We have a lot to learn and other than my faith in the light working I am open to making any changes needed to make this box more efficient in yield. I know we didn't scrog correctly, and it is too high. We will fix that issue on the next grow as we get better with topping and super cropping.

Nice custom build, I like it.. Do you have a spectrum ratio for us? I feel like maybe you've posted it here before..

I don't quite remember exactly, my friend has all the receipts, but off the top of my head this is what I remember. I hadn't actually posted the ratio before, just the spectrums.

6ea of 420nm, 430, 445, and 455 (royal blue)
6 cree warm whites
20 cree 630nm
12 'china' 640/650 multichips
36 OSRAM 660nm

For the veg side I used a 420nm, 430nm, 445nm, 455nm, warm white, 630nm, and 660nm per strip, 2 strips used above veg for a total of 14 LEDs.


I had 1 strip running and cut a hole for ventilation and this is what it looked like on the outside of the hole after I cut it.. thought it looked pretty cool.

This was my veg tent a while back:

You got me beat, that is one cool looking pattern.

Pshhhh. Cheap Chinese shit compared to what you got your friend running with. Cool stuff, man. Thanks for the pics.

That's a boatload of 660, I dig it.

maybe i just dont really see it good in the Pictures but how do you Keep them all cool without a heatsink or is there any?

lax123 said:

maybe i just dont really see it good in the Pictures but how do you Keep them all cool without a heatsink or is there any?

Click to expand...

From the gentleman himself:

• Lighting is 98 LEDs on 1-1/4" channel aluminum with 2 fans that keep them cool and provide lots of air on the canopy.​
  
  
  
  

Channel aluminum is a great heatsink. If you add a pressurized fan that fits in the aluminum (ala stevesleds.com) channel you can carry away a lot of heat. Sounds like he's just got the fans creating air movement in the box carrying away enough for his light.

You can't really add a pressurized fan to channel aluminum, those work best on boxed aluminum like Steve uses. There are 2 'computer' fans mounted on the top left of the light if you look closely at the pictures of the light in the box. These fans put out 125cfm each using 12v/1.3a that came out of Dell computers. Probably the most powerful fan I have seen in that size. It cools the LED light, literally cool, not even room temperature, and blasts air over the canopy.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/FOXCONN-12038-PV123812P2BF-12V-1-3A-For-Dell-Dell-Optiplex-960-cooling-Fan/456821916.html

My concern is pH as the girls fatten up. It's much easier to adjust/flush/replenish an outboard rez

View attachment 2780643View attachment 2780644View attachment 2780645

I installed a bulkhead/valve on the left hand side of the container so I can drain all the water through a hose outside. The little dehumidifier is sitting on top of the valve in a couple of the pictures. Already did it once when we switched from veg to flower and it worked good, but I agree with your thoughts. Initially I wanted to use a separate res underneath (like an aquarium/sump setup) but space limitations nixed that idea.

My friend checks parameters and writes them down 4x a day and adjust pH as needed (ph Up). I made a 'door' on the lid of the container to put in top off water/nutes/probes.

The scrog isn't very good it looks like you just let it grow up between the holes instead of weaving the branches and filling the scrog net up. Basically its just a support net because your canopy isn't even at all. Other then that it looks pretty good.

Say calijoe.. Realy 99 plants? i read that alot of medical weed farms are closed by the feds..i live in holland and want to come over to california or colorado to become a grower but i am a little scared about what i read about medical weed farms ! Yes i have a medical prescription now from a docter but .. Why is it that many farms are closed ?

You are absolutely correct. The scrog is barely a scrog and was installed much to late in the grow (because we had multiple strains that grew at very different rates and we were trying to let the slow one catch up, but finally couldn't wait any longer). I tried to leave that part up to the owner, but he was too scared to do it after he broke the first branch he tried. I had weaved about 6 branches to show him how its done and told him to do the rest as it grew. Just this week he is starting to kick himself for not weaving the branches because we have the light as high as it can go and the plants are still stretching so I have just resorted to bending/tying them down to the screen just so they don't grow into the lights.

bloemetje said:

Say calijoe.. Realy 99 plants? i read that alot of medical weed farms are closed by the feds..i live in holland and want to come over to california or colorado to become a grower but i am a little scared about what i read about medical weed farms ! Yes i have a medical prescription now from a docter but .. Why is it that many farms are closed ?

Click to expand...

I was shocked as well... He has his original license posted on the closet and I have read it multiple times.. and says he can exceed SB420 and grow 'up to 99 plants in a 10'x10' area'. Very weird rules if you ask me, but that makes a SOG method at least legal according to his license, although neither of us are interested in cloning/growing that many little lollipops. I will take a picture of the license and black out the personal info and post it next time I go over just so you can see it.

For every farm raided, 1000 more are left alone in northern Cal. Feds seem to go after the blatant offenders (multiple greenhouses/thousands of plants) and dispensaries more than a small grow.

What is 10 by 10 in meters calijoe? Did you mean 10 foot ?

' = foot.
It's about 3m x 3m

I was a little off on the plant count, it is actually 'less than 90', not 99. Here is the license w/ personal information blacked out.

I am looking for some guidance with nutrients. I am completely clueless in this area. Totally winging it right now. Plants look healthy, no deficiencies are visible on the leaves today, just a tiny touch of nute burn at the tips. Only issue is small patches of powder mold due to slightly elevated humidity. My friend has been working on that issue every chance he gets using neem oil, applying it on his fingers and then rubbing the leaves that have tiny spots. The PM issue will hopefully be fixed by proper ventilation in the next couple days as I tweak the ventilation, but for now it is an endless game of whack-a-mole. We vegged them for too long though and they have grown much taller than I anticipated, combined with a failed attempt at scrog hasn't helped matters.

What I have done so far (please be kind if I royally screwed up). Started with Lucas formula in veg. Initially started at 50ppm @ 5.7 until the clones roots touched the water. Hand watered 4x a day until roots were in. This took about 7-10 days before they all touched. Next 3 weeks I raised the PPM slowly using the lucas formula to 300ppm until the end of veg. I started seeing cal-mag deficiencies and was having wild pH swings by the end of veg. I searched and found that was a common deficiency. I then read that simply using a 1:1:1 ratio of GH nutes worked just fine along with adding cal-mag. At the switch to 12/12 I drained the res and then mixed a fresh batch using 1:1:1 GH nutes and 2.5ml per gallon of cal-mag. Top off water with RO/DI is added every day, 1 gallon a day. In the top of water we add hydrogen peroxide at 5ml per gallon. Also been adding 5ml of Cal-Mag per day for the first 3 week of flowering, but stopped when we didn't see the PPMs dropping anymore and the leaves were looking much better. My friend is really good at keeping a log and getting readings multiple times a day. It has already helped us spot patterns and solutions just by having a well documented log book. We were able to see exactly when the PPMs stopped falling and were able to immediately stop adding cal-mag before any serious damage was done. I got the PPM as high as 650 at week 3 and then let it start falling. It just stopped falling 3 days ago so we haven't added anything other than H2O2 in the top of water since. I am thinking since it isn't really dropping there is probably a nute lockout of some type due to by noob methods.

So we are getting to the end of week 4 in flower now and this is the stage I seem to fall flat on my face in my past grows. In the past I went overboard adding every type of bud enhancer I could, and ended up doing way more harm than good. I want to avoid that this time, even if that means doing a full res change out. So let me have it.. have I done ok, severely harmed the yield, is it fixable if I did? What should I be running the pH, water temp, and PPM at from here on out? Is there something else I should be adding or not adding?