12/12 Light Change & Growing Halt!

[Seniorweeder]

Ok guys, as usual I may be getting a bit impatient, but as this is my 1st grow I need help "yes once again". I switched to 12/12 lighting 5 days ago, as a result I have noticed that the height growth of my babies has only moved a bit at best, they have however thickened up a bit and recovered from some late topping I decided to do weeks ago. Are they storing up energy to go into flower or do I need to start adding Nute supplements, or maybe lower lights which are 600 watt LEDs , that are now at 22" above the canopy? So far im seeing the wanted hairs on some that hopefully indicate females but no bud formation at all! Thanks as always my new friends!!

 

[MackMurder]

Ok guys, as usual I may be getting a bit impatient, but as this is my 1st grow I need help "yes once again". I switched to 12/12 lighting 5 days ago, as a result I have noticed that the height growth of my babies has only moved a bit at best, they have however thickened up a bit and recovered from some late topping I decided to do weeks ago. Are they storing up energy to go into flower or do I need to start adding Nute supplements, or maybe lower lights which are 600 watt LEDs , that are now at 22" above the canopy? So far im seeing the wanted hairs on some that hopefully indicate females but no bud formation at all! Thanks as always my new friends!!

Hey brudduh.
All strains are different.
Alot of us on here count flowering times from when the first pistils show up not when you switch to 1212. This is because some strains will take 4 or 5 days to show pistils and others 7 to 12 days.
The stretching can occur for up to 3 to 4 weeks from flipping to 1212 and some strains dont even stretch. I grow many indicas that don't stretch more than a third or a half. Sometimes I get the odd sativa phenotype that well stretch 3 times the size.


To answer some of your questions a 600 watt led (if it is a true 600 watt power draw from the wall) led is more than sufficient at 22" for your plants at this moment. Once your plants are a few weeks into flower.you can push your limits up to 18" but I wouldn't go past 20" in full bloom.
Let's are extremely powerful. They can burn your plants and create heat stress just as good as any HID lighting. They also cause some plants to feed heavier.
Id say your 22" is great from now till harvest.
There's a few growers on here who don't even raise or lower their quantum boards anymore they hang them at the top of the tent and they provide enough light for their plants to get great harvests.

My questions for you it sounds like your growing regular seeds? How many plants do you have?
What have you been feeding them in veg and what will you be feeding them in bloom. Are they a healthy green. Dark green. Light green. Is there any deficiencies. Burnt tips or edges leaf curling. Brown spots on the leaves?
Or are the plants well and healthy.

Some pictures would help alot.

 

[Bill284]

Hey brudduh.
All strains are different.
Alot of us on here count flowering times from when the first pistils show up not when you switch to 1212. This is because some strains will take 4 or 5 days to show pistils and others 7 to 12 days.
The stretching can occur for up to 3 to 4 weeks from flipping to 1212 and some strains dont even stretch. I grow many indicas that don't stretch more than a third or a half. Sometimes I get the odd sativa phenotype that well stretch 3 times the size.


To answer some of your questions a 600 watt led (if it is a true 600 watt power draw from the wall) led is more than sufficient at 22" for your plants at this moment. Once your plants are a few weeks into flower.you can push your limits up to 18" but I wouldn't go past 20" in full bloom.
Let's are extremely powerful. They can burn your plants and create heat stress just as good as any HID lighting. They also cause some plants to feed heavier.
Id say your 22" is great from now till harvest.
There's a few growers on here who don't even raise or lower their quantum boards anymore they hang them at the top of the tent and they provide enough light for their plants to get great harvests.

My questions for you it sounds like your growing regular seeds? How many plants do you have?
What have you been feeding them in veg and what will you be feeding them in bloom. Are they a healthy green. Dark green. Light green. Is there any deficiencies. Burnt tips or edges leaf curling. Brown spots on the leaves?
Or are the plants well and healthy.

Some pictures would help alot.

Well all those questions would help us make recommendations.
A couple pics too. But do you own a light meter for led,s? If not
It can be a great guide. Until you see leaves burning you won’t know how much light they are getting. You always always want to max your light value. With out a meter I guarantee your letting energy go to waste.
Looking forward to following along cheers.

 

[Seniorweeder]

Hey brudduh.
All strains are different.
Alot of us on here count flowering times from when the first pistils show up not when you switch to 1212. This is because some strains will take 4 or 5 days to show pistils and others 7 to 12 days.
The stretching can occur for up to 3 to 4 weeks from flipping to 1212 and some strains dont even stretch. I grow many indicas that don't stretch more than a third or a half. Sometimes I get the odd sativa phenotype that well stretch 3 times the size.


To answer some of your questions a 600 watt led (if it is a true 600 watt power draw from the wall) led is more than sufficient at 22" for your plants at this moment. Once your plants are a few weeks into flower.you can push your limits up to 18" but I wouldn't go past 20" in full bloom.
Let's are extremely powerful. They can burn your plants and create heat stress just as good as any HID lighting. They also cause some plants to feed heavier.
Id say your 22" is great from now till harvest.
There's a few growers on here who don't even raise or lower their quantum boards anymore they hang them at the top of the tent and they provide enough light for their plants to get great harvests.

My questions for you it sounds like your growing regular seeds? How many plants do you have?
What have you been feeding them in veg and what will you be feeding them in bloom. Are they a healthy green. Dark green. Light green. Is there any deficiencies. Burnt tips or edges leaf curling. Brown spots on the leaves?
Or are the plants well and healthy.

Some pictures would help alot.

Oh man thanks sooooo much for the time u took and the in depth answers u gave me. I love all the help I get on this site being I am a Newbie. To answer some Qs, the light is a Growstar 600 watt LED, the vid I saw before I bought it showed it having a god PAR rating in all spectrums, but one guy on here said it was too small to make flowers (hope he is wrong). Theres 5 plants in there in 3 gallon soft pots. The Seeds were generously donated from a new friend on here, and are as follows, far left and far right in back are a strain he calls "Black Water", 2 in front are called "Blu-Lime Skunk". In the middle in back is an unknown but doing very well, all fans have 9 leaves up top and very dark and fat blades. All are phenos.

From seedling til last week when I flipped to 12/12 they were 7 weeks into Veg. They are in F.F. Coco-loco, at advise of another grower on here I have been using Cal-mag in tap water because of an early deficiency, which cleared up, I used 2 mil per gallon. The nutes I have on hand are"Advanced Nutrients. Some have said don't use it until a deficiency shows up, others have said use at half strength starting with flowers? Should I up the dose of Cal-mag? 1st pic: whole box, 2nd pic: close up hopefully showing some light gold areas in the one leaf, 3rd pic: trying to show what I think may be pistols??? This is the most developed plant! All are darker green than the pix show, all have been topped once at 4th node and the one fr right in back was taller so after initial topping I hit it 6 more times to shorten it, and experiment with how much they would take.

My plan was to have ate least 2 nice plants after I see who's female. I will be donating the others either way soon as to open the space up. Thanks smooch for all your time friend!

 

[MackMurder]

Is it this light? Its got alot of blurple (blurple does flower weed) and its got 2 bright white cobs (chip on board leds) which will flower weed just fine. Its a small light good for a 2x2 tent in flower (3x3 may be pushing it in flower). Probably an older cob chip as most of these lights will use to save money but if thats the light it'll work to flower. Those cobs will Penetrate. 2 would be better than one.
But if you want some ideas on lights that will be under 2 or 300 bucks for a light that'll last forever let me know and we can discuss it. I use cob leds, ceramic metal halides and quantum boards and you could thats only if you want to upgrade. Its easy for other people to spend your money.

With fox farms coco loco some people water everyday. Some every 2nd or 3rd day. In 3 gallon pots id say you'd be at the every 2 day mark but thats just a guess.
Keep doing cal mag every watering as is required for coco as your tap water might not be enough.

Which advanced nutrients do you have. 2 part? 3 part? Micro grow bloom or just part a and part b?

Id be feeding half strength to 3/4 strength recommended dose as with any nute suppliment..usually less is more but the nice thing about coco is its drainage factor and oxygen retention.. Very hard to over water your plants and if you water to run off then yoi should never have salt build up which would create lockouts.

Do you have ph meters and a tds or ec meter?

 

[NorthernCosmos]

They label that Growstar light as 600W, then specifies 250W power draw, and then a user reported 140W power draw and another user reported 128W power draw.

So it's not a 600W light by any stretch of the imagination, and mostly a red/blue spectrum. It's quite cheap though and you can grow under it, but only for a fairly small area. Since you're moving into flowering, your plants need more light.

I'd try to lower the light more - I run a (real) 300W full spectrum LED light and it sits around 16 inches from the top of the flowering plants. However, lowering it may give less coverage in your grow space, so In the long term, I'd be looking at upgrading that light to something more powerful. E.g. Mars Hydro and Budget LED are sponsors here on the forum and have real good modern lights for a fair price.

 

[MackMurder]

Budget led has great lights and its always nice to support an American company.

I personally grow with a 480 watt kingbrite and 240 watt kingbrite

You could buy 2x240 watt (2 because you can spread but your coverage better) with medium bin, Samsung lm301h diodes and UV and IR as well plus all the hangers straps and the installed potentiometer to dial down the power to the light for veg and or flower for only 320 bucks cdn plus about 100 bucks shipping. So your looking at around 420 cdn (330 usd) all said and done for 480 watts true power quantum board delivered to your door and ive personally dealt with Jerry and Vivi Lu from kingbrite off of alibaba and will do everything they can to save you money if you buy two.
They have a 1 year warranty on the light and 5 year on the driver.
I've had my boards from them for 2 years and haven't had one issue. And the also sell the replacement panels for dirt cheap so if one ever goes its an easy swap. A bunch of growers on .org use them and the customer service is much better than a second popular company called Meizu
There's definately alot of options out there. Some people get shy about alibaba but growers have been using them and kingbrite for a while now and have had no bad reviews.

 

[Seniorweeder]

Is it this light? Its got alot of blurple (blurple does flower weed) and its got 2 bright white cobs (chip on board leds) which will flower weed just fine. Its a small light good for a 2x2 tent in flower (3x3 may be pushing it in flower). Probably an older cob chip as most of these lights will use to save money but if thats the light it'll work to flower. Those cobs will Penetrate. 2 would be better than one.
But if you want some ideas on lights that will be under 2 or 300 bucks for a light that'll last forever let me know and we can discuss it. I use cob leds, ceramic metal halides and quantum boards and you could thats only if you want to upgrade. Its easy for other people to spend your money.

With fox farms coco loco some people water everyday. Some every 2nd or 3rd day. In 3 gallon pots id say you'd be at the every 2 day mark but thats just a guess.
Keep doing cal mag every watering as is required for coco as your tap water might not be enough.

Which advanced nutrients do you have. 2 part? 3 part? Micro grow bloom or just part a and part b?

Id be feeding half strength to 3/4 strength recommended dose as with any nute suppliment..usually less is more but the nice thing about coco is its drainage factor and oxygen retention.. Very hard to over water your plants and if you water to run off then yoi should never have salt build up which would create lockouts.

Do you have ph meters and a tds or ec meter?

So much help and input here, thanks a bunch for your time and effort "MackMurder", you are too kind! Yes that is my exact light, bare in mind im a real tight ass, and old, I always start out cheap as possible on any project and move forward til I learn better or succeed . I am having soooooo much fun with my first grow and all the research I do and all the cool folks I've met on here. Im not by any means the "Rocket Scientist" that most of U are, I just spoon feed my brain as I move along. I like the lights u suggested and will probably move in that direction for my next grow after Summer.

BTW my homemade grow box is 2'x4' x 65" if I didn't mention, my A.N. nutes are a 3 part type. But when is best time to start using them? As my plants are bigger and close to flower should I raise my Cal-mag dose up from 2 ml per gallon as I am doing now? I have not been watering to run off because I heard early on that with the Coco-loco I could rinse out the nutes it came with! So far like clock work the pots are light every 2 days, and they are currently drinking 1 quart per plant at feeding. Was that close up good enough to tell anything about the sex??? Thanks A ton friend!

 

[Seniorweeder]

They label that Growstar light as 600W, then specifies 250W power draw, and then a user reported 140W power draw and another user reported 128W power draw.

So it's not a 600W light by any stretch of the imagination, and mostly a red/blue spectrum. It's quite cheap though and you can grow under it, but only for a fairly small area. Since you're moving into flowering, your plants need more light.

I'd try to lower the light more - I run a (real) 300W full spectrum LED light and it sits around 16 inches from the top of the flowering plants. However, lowering it may give less coverage in your grow space, so In the long term, I'd be looking at upgrading that light to something more powerful. E.g. Mars Hydro and Budget LED are sponsors here on the forum and have real good modern lights for a fair price.

Thanks "Northern" I understand what u mean about upgrading , I will probably make a move to better lighting for next Falls grow. I'm just getting my feet wet for now. At 18" above the plants I got a little bit of bleaching on the tips of some top leaves, so I moved up to about 22" a while back, Should I lower to maybe 18" when buds form and keep a close eye for any burning? In case I didnt mention my homemade grow box is 2'x4'x65"!

 

[NorthernCosmos]

Hard to say how low you should go, it depends on many factors (temps, humidity, light spectrum, strain etc.) . If you did get light/heat stress at 18", then backing off is right. Perhaps the plants can take a bit more later in flowering(?) So yes feel your way there.

I also grow in a 2'x4' area, and from specs, lore and experience it seems about right with a 300W LED (a Mars Hydro TSL-2000 in my case, pulling 300W from the socket).

 

[MackMurder]

So much help and input here, thanks a bunch for your time and effort "MackMurder", you are too kind! Yes that is my exact light, bare in mind im a real tight ass, and old, I always start out cheap as possible on any project and move forward til I learn better or succeed . I am having soooooo much fun with my first grow and all the research I do and all the cool folks I've met on here. Im not by any means the "Rocket Scientist" that most of U are, I just spoon feed my brain as I move along. I like the lights u suggested and will probably move in that direction for my next grow after Summer.

BTW my homemade grow box is 2'x4' x 65" if I didn't mention, my A.N. nutes are a 3 part type. But when is best time to start using them? As my plants are bigger and close to flower should I raise my Cal-mag dose up from 2 ml per gallon as I am doing now? I have not been watering to run off because I heard early on that with the Coco-loco I could rinse out the nutes it came with! So far like clock work the pots are light every 2 days, and they are currently drinking 1 quart per plant at feeding. Was that close up good enough to tell anything about the sex??? Thanks A ton friend!

Ok so according to the web page for coco loco

Coco Loco Potting Mix has the ability to hold more than its weight in water while still draining well
The coir in Coco Loco behaves like little sponges offering nutrients and water as needed by the plants

This is one reason why you will not wash away all the nutrients..
2nd your 3 gallon pots with those size plants you have have already filled out the entire pot with roots.
So as you water till runoff. The micro and macro nutrients will be held onto by the little fibrous hairs coming off each root plus the coco acts like a sponge absorbing the nutrients into little pockets.

Coco loco does not change the ph of your nutrient solution it says because its triple washed prio to remove the potassium and or salt I beleive from the coconuts environment which is around lots of salt water.

I'm sure advanced nutrients has a mutrient feeding schedule for coco or drain to waste. Ive never used advanced before but every other nutrient brand I use I always go half strength the recommended or 75% of recommended as it is generally always more.

And short answer no if you water until runoff.yoi will not wash out nutrients. You will just wash out a bit if salt buildup of old nutrients from your last watering which is a good thing as it reduces the chance for nutrient lockout.

Your plants are big enough now and in the transition stage to flower which means they will be feeding heavy. So definately feed them the 3 part system at minimum half strength maximum 75% every 2 to 3 days. 2 being minimum 3 being maximum.

Their also 3 gallon pots so maybe they'll need a watering every 2 days no ifs ands or buts.

 

[MackMurder]

As my plants are bigger and close to flower should I raise my Cal-mag dose up from 2 ml per gallon as I am doing now? I

If your adding calmag which is good and u should be because of using coco. Then the added 3 part system from AN will have calcium and magnesium in them as well I would keep your current dose if calmag the same so as to not lock anything out and also because from your pictures you dont seem to have any calcium deficiencies

 

[bluter]

think i mentioned in another thread you were gonna want a better light for flower. you've gotten real good advice here so far. your plants don't look bad at all. a more powerful light does kick them in to flower a bit quicker and much more solidly.

 

[Seniorweeder]

Ok so according to the web page for coco loco

Coco Loco Potting Mix has the ability to hold more than its weight in water while still draining well
The coir in Coco Loco behaves like little sponges offering nutrients and water as needed by the plants

This is one reason why you will not wash away all the nutrients..
2nd your 3 gallon pots with those size plants you have have already filled out the entire pot with roots.
So as you water till runoff. The micro and macro nutrients will be held onto by the little fibrous hairs coming off each root plus the coco acts like a sponge absorbing the nutrients into little pockets.

Coco loco does not change the ph of your nutrient solution it says because its triple washed prio to remove the potassium and or salt I beleive from the coconuts environment which is around lots of salt water.

I'm sure advanced nutrients has a mutrient feeding schedule for coco or drain to waste. Ive never used advanced before but every other nutrient brand I use I always go half strength the recommended or 75% of recommended as it is generally always more.

And short answer no if you water until runoff.yoi will not wash out nutrients. You will just wash out a bit if salt buildup of old nutrients from your last watering which is a good thing as it reduces the chance for nutrient lockout.

Your plants are big enough now and in the transition stage to flower which means they will be feeding heavy. So definately feed them the 3 part system at minimum half strength maximum 75% every 2 to 3 days. 2 being minimum 3 being maximum.

Their also 3 gallon pots so maybe they'll need a watering every 2 days no ifs ands or buts.

Such good /helpful advise! You rock "Mack"! Thanks as always. I think I see little balls on one plant so I'm keeping a close eye on that "possibly Boy"! Will send more pix when they develope more!

 

[Grand Daddy Black]

@Seniorweeder, I've read through this thread twice from the beginning. Am I correct that you have raised these plants to flip age, in coco with no nutrients?

 

[Seniorweeder]

Hey Grand Daddy, they were raised in Fox Farms Coco-loco which has built in nutes, I only added Cal-mag at another growers advise because they had a deficiency early on and still use it. I haven't started using any added nutes yet for flowering!

 

[MackMurder]

@Seniorweeder, I've read through this thread twice from the beginning. Am I correct that you have raised these plants to flip age, in coco with no nutrients?

Was funny I thought the same thing at first like damn. Mans got the legendary skills