My Pandemic Project featuring Chinese LED Strips

Quite a bit of progress since my last update. I wasn’t happy with the slow growth in a handful of the lice cream cake plants. A number of them never really seemed to recover from the nutrient shock. They were all stating to look healthy but close to half had stunted growth. In the last update, i had rearranged plants a bit to focus the most intense sections of light on the weakest plants and that helped some of them but it wasn’t good enough for all. A decision was made to “cull the heard”. Initially, I had removed around 10 plants and watched for a week. Perhaps I was being a tad impatient but I started with so many more plants than originally planned, I had that luxury to cull even more. Final plant count for this run will be 32, 28 of which are ICC. The plants will now have ample room to grow and only the strongest specimens remaining will be flowered in the room so I don’t think my final yield will suffer much. The rest of the plants are going outside for me to practice/experiment with training technique and nutrient combos. I will probably have one that I purposely injure and then nurse back to health. Should be fun

This weekend I picked up a 50 pint dehuey and built myself a scrog. The scrog is made from some pre-tied tomato trellis net and schedule 40 rigid pvc. It’s height adjustable, can easily add a second or third level and it straps directly to my table. I’m quite pleased with the final product! Still need to build the other one but it should be quick and easy since I’ve already done one.

May be too many plants for the area. Awesome first grow room though.

Got sick and thought I had covid but the plants didn’t care. Flipped about two weeks ago and everything is looking reallll nice. Got rid of the chili verde and doctors order that I was growing for my GF. They looked shitty and we’re taking up space.

Starting to get frosty. While growing has been fun I think I miss building out the room. Might have to expand on the next run. I’m at less than 50% of what I’m legally allowed. Might be time to convert the garage.

My neck of the woods is currently completely on fire and experiencing record heat so I’ve been spending a lot of time amongst my plants. Fresh air with no smoke and even though I’m running the room at 87F it’s still cooler in there than everywhere else. Plants are coming along nicely. Currently in the middle of week 4. Looks like I’ve got a bit of a CaMg deficiency so I bumped that up a bit and cranked up the CO2 and other nutes. Plants have responded pretty well. Almost there!

Only 1 or 2 weeks left until harvest. Switched up nutes for these last couple weeks. Cut back on the maxi and added some koolbloom (less N and more K and P)to the recipe along with some bud swell. Gonna toss a 1000w HPS flowering light (2100k) in the middle of the room to add more red spectrum for the finish. Also gonna start running cooler night time temps to see if i can trick the plant into showing a little purple.

Shit bro, this is pretty cool. How much watt are your lights in total? I'm trying to figure out if my LED tubes will be good enough XD

Retr0_ZA said:

Shit bro, this is pretty cool. How much watt are your lights in total? I'm trying to figure out if my LED tubes will be good enough XD

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Each LED fixture is is 720w (true watts not that led equivalent shit). I’m about to hang a 1000w HPS to help with the finish.

What size is your space and specs on the tubes you have? You planning on using the T5 LED?Happy to help you figure out if they’ll be adequate. Shoot me a PM

sf_frankie said:

Only 1 or 2 weeks left until harvest. Switched up nutes for these last couple weeks. Cut back on the maxi and added some koolbloom (less N and more K and P)to the recipe along with some bud swell. Gonna toss a 1000w HPS flowering light (2100k) in the middle of the room to add more red spectrum for the finish. Also gonna start running cooler night time temps to see if i can trick the plant into showing a little purple.

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Definitely more than 1-2 weeks, more like 3-4.

It’s hard to tell from the pics but in pics #2/3 it almost appears like they are revegging. Did you have any issues with your light timer?

NukaKola said:

Definitely more than 1-2 weeks, more like 3-4.

It’s hard to tell from the pics but in pics #2/3 it almost appears like they are revegging. Did you have any issues with your light timer?

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We had a power outage thanks to the fires last week so yeah. Breeder said this was a 9wk strain and next week is the start of week 9. I thought for sure they’d need more than one week. But wasn’t sure if I needed to just follow breeders instructions. There’s no danger in running longer right?

sf_frankie said:

We had a power outage thanks to the fires last week so yeah. Breeder said this was a 9wk strain and next week is the start of week 9. I thought for sure they’d need more than one week. But wasn’t sure if I needed to just follow breeders instructions. There’s no danger in running longer right?

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That makes sense. You can tell they started to reveg in the 2nd & 3rd pic because of the single leaf structure up top which is barely shooting out pistils while the lower parts of the branches appear to be more developed.

Breeder flowering time estimations are almost always incorrect. People want fast flowering strains to move onto the next crop so breeders always under-estimate.

The fact that it looks like some of your plants started to reveg can add up to an additional 2-6 weeks. Definitely update in a few weeks before chopping to get some opinions.

NukaKola said:

That makes sense. You can tell they started to reveg in the 2nd & 3rd pic because of the single leaf structure up top which is barely shooting out pistils while the lower parts of the branches appear to be more developed.

Breeder flowering time estimations are almost always incorrect. People want fast flowering strains to move onto the next crop so breeders always under-estimate.

The fact that it looks like some of your plants started to reveg can add up to an additional 2-6 weeks. Definitely update in a few weeks before chopping to get some opinions.

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Thanks for the help Nuka. Will definitely not be chopping in the next two weeks. I’m in no hurry to finish. Fuckin fire season came early this year. Thought I’d be safe but the power outages are messing with my indoor and I have to lead blow ash off the outdoor

No problem! The fires are definitely out of control, just another thing to add to this crazy year.

If you are able to get a generator that will come in handy during power outages. Or even a battery backup with some household LED bulbs in cheap sockets or fluorescent strips connected to your timer just to maintain the light schedule.

So I kinda disappeared. Some shit came up and I missed the harvest so my buddy had to handle it. Got 4.25lbs total. Never ended up getting a pic of all of it but it was high B grade from what I’m told. Didn’t have as many crystals as I would have liked. Will try and remedy that on this run by adding some supplements UVs and not making a bunch of dumb rookie mistakes!

kinda looks like chicken nuggets in the thumbnail


Round 2 starts tonight. Got 50 clones from a well known local breeder last night. It’s original zittles crossed with mimosa. I’ve seen what the finished product looks like and I’m pretty excited to give it a go myself.

When I made this thread I called it my pandemic project. No fuckin way I thought that almost a year later I’d still be able to call it a pandemic project! Oh well. At least I’ll have plenty to do while I continue to do my best to shelter in place!

Good shit man! You give me hope lol! I’m in the middle of building a 17’x17’and plan to put 9x650w LEDs... it’s a lot to figure out but it’s a lot of fun!

Boomer22 said:

Good shit man! You give me hope lol! I’m in the middle of building a 17’x17’and plan to put 9x650w LEDs... it’s a lot to figure out but it’s a lot of fun!

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Thanks bro! Putting it all together was my favorite part. Itching to build and design another space for someone!

Clones are looking OK. A little bit of transplant shock but that was to be expected. I ordered 50 and only plan to finish with around 35-40 so these next few weeks I'll be playing grow room survivor.

Here is a screenshot of my grow room dashboard. I'm using a Raspberry Pi 4 running HomeAssistant to monitor and control some things. Its a work in progress. My favorite part is the real time color changing VPD gauge that I coded. Beats using a chart or VPD calculator. I can access it from any web browser or via iPhone app! Will be adding more automation once I start working again. Finally going back to work after a loooong COVID layoff. Won't have as much time for the grow so automation will be key. Stay tuned!

I started mixing up the soil ahead of time cause I had nothing else going on. Doing a 75/25 mix of Fox Farms Coco Loco cut with Perlite.



Saturday was transplant day. Last run I had started with 70+ clones and space for 50 in 5 gals. By the end it was down to fewer than 30 and I ended up giving away like 15 plants. This year I am gonna try avoid all the rookie mistakes that killed my young plants and run 36 start to finish. One of my biggest fuck ups was running nutes straight out of the gate. There are plenty of nutes in the soil for the first few weeks so for now I'm just adding Rapid Start root enhancer, some Liquid Karma and Floralicious Plus and Cal Mag. I probably don't even all that (save the CalMag, we have really soft water) but I have to add something. Can't help my self to not play mad scientist.



I wasn't planning on running outdoor because I didn't want to buy 300 gallons of new soil but since I ended up with extra clones but fuck it, why not. I removed most of the roots from the old soil and tilled it with a shovel. Its been sitting outside for months getting rained on so I figure its plenty washed by now.



I used up all of the soil I purchased on the indoor pots. I didn't feel like going back to the store and I didn't want to bring any of the outdoor soil into my grow room so I came up with a ridiculous solution. I've got this storage closet on the side of my house....


Hmmm...


Bam, new mother/veg room. Had a T5, humidifier as well as some extra clip on fans lying around so I tossed them in. The price of clones went wayyyy up in the last 6 months so this room was probably gonna happen eventually. Right now its holding 5 plants in 3 gal smart pots that will eventually go into the big planters outside. Gonna give the rest of the clones to my buddy.


This run for me is all about maximizing efficiency and keeping costs low. Been keeping track of every dollar spent as well as adjusting lighting schedules to match with off-peak energy hours since we are now on a time of use plan. I also set my grow room temp to better match outdoor temps to minimize AC/heat use and I'll be keeping the air scrubber off until its absolutely necessary. Adding a veg/mother room will help keep the cost of future runs low.

Little update. Veg is boring. Here is a pic from a few days ago. Little over 2 weeks since they were dropped into the final 5 gals. Coming along nicely. Plants are healthy.


Ran into a childhood friend of mine who I hadn't seen in years. We got to talking about growing and he said he had some seeds he wanted to give me. He has been holding these since 2012. Back before the Cookies craze he bought an OZ of GSC from Berner himself. Berner is the guy behind Cookies for those who don't know and was actually my buddies roommate back before he became famous. The OZ he sold my buddy ended up being full of seeds and he's been holding them since. They are in a paper towel right and I'm hoping they'll pop. Would be super dope to have some original GSC genetics! He also hooked it up with some Gelato seeds also from Berner and 5 seeds from another breeder. I've never popped beans before and I'm super excited to jump into pheno hunting/crossing/breeding. My little side shed is doing alright for now but I will likely be grabbing a tent for the garage to veg in.

Turned up the lights a bit and I intend to start introducing bottled nutes this week. I’ll be flipping in 2 weeks or so but want to get everything up to 100% before than. Had a noticeable growth increase pretty much overnight after increasing the light intensity.

veg is boring. Recently wrote an automation script on the Pi to control humidity using my small 4” extraction fan. Dehumidifiers suck up a ton of electricity so I wanted to see if I could get away with not using it. Surprisingly it worked! Had to bump up my temps just a tad to maintain VPD but other than that it’s perfect. I’ll have to go back to running the dehumidifier once I flip and start burning CO2. Every dollar saved counts!

I also just ate shit and fell backwards into my plants while trying to reach something up high on my shelf. I knew I couldn’t grab my lights on the way down but somehow managed to mostly fall between the tables. My ass super cropped one plant and defoliated the branch off another. Lesson learned, use the damn step ladder!

ordered some supplemental lights today. They are UV and Far Red. Gonna run them for the duration of 12/12. They should be here this week and I’ll flip the following week.