My Third Grow, first time using LED's

Just set up a new grow room, it's divided so I got one half for veg and the other half for bud. Each half is 6ft x 4ft but its got a slanted ceiling so the flowering room is taller than the veg room. Got 12 clones: 2 skunk#1, 2 afghani, 2 trainwreck, 2 hawaiian snow, 2 trainwreck, and 2 grandaddy purps. I split them into the two rooms, one clone of each strain in each room, so that I can compare my new Haight Solid State PPF-800 light against Metal Halides. The company says the light replaces a 600w mh or hps, but i dont have any 600 watters so I'm using 2 400w mh's, hopefully that will be a little more comparable.

It's been 13 days since I started my LED vs. MH experiment, and so far I'm already impressed with the LED light; all the plants in that room have straight, perky leaves, and they have a lot darker coloring and shorter internodes. The plants in the metal halide room are lighter and have curled-downward leaves, and they seem to be growing at about the same speed but have a little longer internodes. So far I can't tell which one is growing faster, but the ones under LED's definitely look healthier and happier. Gotta wait till harvest time to see which has a better yield/potency :]

This is the veg room, with 2 400w metal halides and one clone of each strain


This is the flowering room, which is currently being used as a veg room with my new LED light that only uses 93 watts and puts out (supposedly) as much light as a 600w metal halide.


This is the Grandaddy Purp under the LED light. Both GDP clones were taken in flower, so they both got shocked and reverted back to triple and then to single leaves, and they both started to grow ramshorn leaves, but after I put some Liquid Karma (forgot what company makes it, it's kelp-based) in with the fertilizer, they just started growing new leaves of 5

The Liquid Karma is made by Botanicare. I also have Pro Grow and Pro Bloom by them for veg and bloom. Currently feeding 10ml/4l of pro grow and 10ml/l of liquid karma at every watering.

Repotted all the girls last weekend, posting new pics. So I've decided that the Metal Halide plants are growing faster than the LED's, but the LED's still look healthier in my opinion. Also noticed the MH plants have more developed roots than LED's, but it is significantly warmer in the MH room than the LED room so I'm not sure if the heat is making the root-ball difference (which in turn would cause growth difference) or if the lights are actually causing a difference.


LED Trainwreck


MH Trainwreck


Afghanis, LED on the left, MH on the right


Skunk #1's, MH on the left, LED on the right


Grandaddy Purps, MH on the left, LED on the right

So this is what they look like now, almost a week after repotting. If you're wondering what that ghetto-looking thing is hanging over the plants in the pic on the right, that's my ghetto-fabulous reflector that i made. The original shop light reflectors were big and heavy and focused the light too much, so i had to crowd the plants, plus there was a bad hotspot in the middle. So I made two cones out of chicken wire and then covered the inside with white reflective road tape. Highly reflective, but it diffuses light as well, so no hotspots in the middle and i can spread the plants more :]
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Just repotted all the girls in the MH room into 15 gallon Smart Pots. The guy at the grow store said they air prune the roots when they grow through the edge of the bag which causes them to branch out instead of just circling around like in a regular pot, so I decided to give them a shot.

Grandaddy Purp, Trainwreck, Skunk#1, Blackberry, Afghanica, Hawaiian Snow


I didn't get enough smart pots to do the girls in the LED room, but they aren't growing as fast as the MH ones so they dont need repotting yet anyway. They will eventually get smart pots as well though.

The soil in all the 3 gallon pots was Foxfarm, but I couldn't afford to get the same for all the 15 gallons so I used a 50/50 mix of Black Gold and a cheaper organic soil that has kelp meal and mycorrhizae in it, I think the brand was called NuLife. For mites I've only used SNS-217 (but I'm going to start making my own with rosemary oil, $40 per quart is ridiculous) and neem oil spray, so this is my first 100% organic grow!

Just made a new 30-site cloning tub too:

This is the flowering room, which is currently being used as a veg room with my new LED light that only uses 93 watts and puts out (supposedly) as much light as a 600w metal halide..This is why LED'S get bad name........But so far so good...Is ur led in flowering only 93w also??Yeah they look pretty close exp. if ur only using 93w...