Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

SBG said:
they are looking great. When it comes time for nutes I would ask King John about Cal/Mag and LED lights he thinks they need more Cal/mag and I know Radoghast has the same problem showing up in his plants that I have with mine. Now would be a good time to head that off.
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Thanks for the reminder. I remembered reading about that before, but was growing with CFLs and totally forgot about it lol.
I have some Epsom salts on hand, and there's calcium and magnesium in my nutes, I'm just hoping it's enough. If not, I'll pick up some calmag, and use the epsom to hold me over.

ChillAH said:
Thx Antics your the mutha f'n man lol
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What did I do wrong now? lol

jinn said:
Yes, it was something brought up by several grow journals using LED lighting. They would see issues right as they were happening, as there is a small lag time between something being wrong with the plant, and the plant giving us visual cues.
I can't tell you the science of it, as i don't know. I imagine it has to do with contrast of the spectrum and the intensity/penetration of the light. like being able to see your veins in your finger when put over a high powered light.
But yeah, you'll see deficiencies and injuries on a plant much sooner under LED.

(although for any of the mad scientists out there, if one of you wanted to run an experiment, take two clones, using the same everything purposely induce an issue and see the results as they unfold under both LED and another light source)
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That's cool! Although that experiment might not quite work, since the lighting itself may cause nutrient requirements to increase, as in the case of calcium and magnesium that SBG mentioned.

And a quick update since I'm bored during this early Veg stage.

I decided perimeter watering wasn't enough. I'm going to be bottom watering as well, since I want my roots to grow down, as well as out. So I used some 1/2" PVC conduit tunneled into my soil along the outside wall of the pot, and have them inserted from the top, down to about 1" from the very bottom. Will it work? Who knows.. but it sounds good in theory.

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And just some pictures, since I was already there.

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re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

Antics said:
That's cool! Although that experiment might not quite work, since the lighting itself may cause nutrient requirements to increase, as in the case of calcium and magnesium that SBG mentioned.
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The cal/mag issue is more than likely a medium issue, or a water source issue. (i.e some people using r/o will have issues whereas some people have tap water that has enough cal/mag and other trace elements in it.
Although if the light itself is causing the issue, its even more important to do an experiment with it =p

All that being said, we take out the cal/mag deficiency as a variable. Forcing a nitrogen deficiency in both plants will yield measurable results rather quickly.
 
re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

jinn said:
The cal/mag issue is more than likely a medium issue, or a water source issue. (i.e some people using r/o will have issues whereas some people have tap water that has enough cal/mag and other trace elements in it.
Although if the light itself is causing the issue, its even more important to do an experiment with it =p

All that being said, we take out the cal/mag deficiency as a variable. Forcing a nitrogen deficiency in both plants will yield measurable results rather quickly.
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Alright, I'm picking up what you're putting down. I have hard water in my area, so I'll be less likely to run into those problems, which is cool for me.

:thumb:
 
re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

I will make an update at the present time.
Why?

Because!

Alright, starting with yesterday, @ 18 days old I noticed a deficiency starting. Looks like Potassium, so I gave her a slightly early watering and nutes.

Without flash:
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With flash:
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She was given 40 ounces total water. I'm Still perimeter watering, but I gave her a little bit at the root zone as well to head off the deficiency early.

2.5ml/gallon micro
2.5ml/gallon grow
2.5ml/gallon bloom

And it appears there are no advancements today, so all should be well.

Now onto today. Day 19 of Veg. She's right about 3" / 7.5cm tall. Everything appears to be growing normally, although her stem has a slight curve to one side. Now quite sure what that's about, but the LST will fix that right up.

Otherwise, I guess that's about it for now. Thanks for stopping by!

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re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

Thanks all! And something I didn't think to measure earlier is node spacing.

So I just measured that now, better late than never.

Current spacing between 1st and 2nd node is 15 mm
Current spacing between 2nd and 3rd node is 12.5 mm

I've never had spacing this tight with CFLs. I almost feel like raising the light to get node spacing back to what I'm used to lol.

Light is currently about 21" from the canopy now.
 
re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

Your grow is looking great so far Antics.
Subscribed.
 
re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

Thanks guys :)

And I forgot to include the first deformed leaves in measurements, so technically those measurements are between 2nd and 3rd node, 3rd node and 4th node.

The spacing between the actual first node, and 2nd node is somewhere around 5mm, although something is still 'off' or wrong in this area from the earlier problems.

I tried to take some pictures of the node spacing, but it's a pain in the ass getting my ruler in there, but I have a couple of the best pictures I could get:
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This morning I opened the grow around 8:20am and found a few leaves curling upwards.

For information purposes, I am currently running 18/6 lighting. Lights on at 2:30am, Lights off at 8:30 pm.
From 2:30 am, to 8:20 am the temperature in the closet peaked at 81 F 27 C, so not too bad at all. My CFLs could exceed 90 F 32 C if I left the doors closed during lights on.

Anyways, we had a few leaves curling upwards, mostly on the top of the canopy, so the light has been raised from 21" up to 23". 53.3cm up to 58.4cm.

Since temps are good I can only assume it was the light distance. It's amazing how powerful these LEDs are! With CFLs I couldn't get the close enough for a real good level of intensity and penetration. With LEDs it's almost effortless as long as you keep the proper distance.

Plant height also increased. We are now looking at a height of 3.5" 9cm.
 
re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

Startin to take off! look at her go :) LED's are super intense. Seeing all of these grows makes me want to build one really badly. I'd love to get the same or even better results with half the power used. What a concept!
 
re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

I looked at building one a while back, and it's not cost efficient. If you truly need to tinker and build your own, or need a custom spectrum that a manufacturer can't/won't produce, or even a specific shape, then it's worth doing.

Otherwise, for the number of diodes you'd buy for a project like that, you just won't see the discount necessary to make it worth the time or money.

I paid $105 for this TopLED light. If I was to try to build one using these same specs, it'd cost me somewhere around $150-$175, and that doesn't even include the nice housing. And being in the US, you'll have free shipping from TopLED as well. It's worth a shot brother. Especially for the price. Even if you were to buy just one to try out for clones, or for Veg, it's worth it. Just make sure you have the Veg option like in the Mars II, and Reflector series. The old series that I'm using is a full spectrum light.

I still plan to build some small LED strips in the future just for my own experience, that I plan to use around the sides of my Flower area just for a little added light, and just to satisfy that need to tinker. But if you're looking at building a light just for cost savings, it's going to cost more.
 
re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

That's what I was thinking about doing but making 2 10' strips. But with 6000w going already.... That might just be over kill haha Thanks for stopping by my thread man!
 
re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

we have new growth:high-five: ... how many plants do u think u can flower under the L.e.d light u have ? i will continue to use a (ho) t-5 to veg but i don't wanna fight the heat next summer . hell for the price one hortilux super hps bulb cost i could almost buy tour top led panel...
 
re: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

Swedge said:
Good read :) what height were your led's at the very start?
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Started at 20" above, Moved up to 24", Then turned it off. Started back on at 21", moved up to 23" yesterday I think, and I moved it up a little more just a short time ago, I'll need to measure that tomorrow. Approximately 25-26" now.

butters6906 said:
hey antics now that i have nothing to do im going to stalk your thread to see how that LED does

looks good so far cant wait to see her go into flower :popcorn:
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Me too man. I'm hoping to see this LED kick her into high gear when Flowering starts.. in like 4-5 weeks. She starts week 3 tomorrow.

devils letuce said:
we have new growth:high-five: ... how many plants do u think u can flower under the L.e.d light u have ? i will continue to use a (ho) t-5 to veg but i don't wanna fight the heat next summer . hell for the price one hortilux super hps bulb cost i could almost buy tour top led panel...
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Based on the size of how I normally grow my plants (short and wide) I'd say this light would work beautifully for 2 plants, and I'm hoping to see at least 3 ounces this first grow under the LED, although the goal is 3.15 ounces. This grow will be just 1 plant to try to beat my previous yield from 2 plants, with just 1 plant now.
Yeah LED prices have come down a lot, and I liked the grows I saw from TopLED's lights, so I had to jump in on one myself and give it a try. I'm guessing this light is similar to growing with a 450-600w HID? 100 total diodes x 3w each..

As for heat, the Ambient temperature in my room is 68-72, the grow is in the closet here, and has a peak temperature of 81 degrees Fahrenheit with the doors closed. When I open just one closet door during lights on, I'm looking at 74-76 degrees in the closet then. So temps are working fine for me.
 
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