Potpimp's White Widow Grow.

spudlite4:20 said:

Those are very nice looking plants for a week old.. i have thought about using leds but i wasn't sure about the like everyone else.. now do they have to be multi colored like your or could they be that solid white or blue whatever you want to call it..

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Hey Spud, the reason they are red and blue is because those are the color spectrums that the plants can actually use. There is only a very narrow slice of the visible spectrum they can use and the red and blue cover it completely - and save a ton of energy.

They are looking very good. I just got my 250W HPS in yesterday. Have it all set up and I am using it. I am ordering another 150W HPS to add in during the flowering stage. Right now I am just using the 250W HPS and 2 CFL Shoplights. They are working great. The plants really started responding now that I added the 250W HPS.

Oh, and too the person who asked if I ever build one, to put it up. I sure will, but since potpimp is doing a full grow with it and journal, I probably wont. I already spent the money for the HPS. But...If I happen to come into extra cash, and want to experiement, I will def build one and make a journal of it.

Keep up the good grow potpimp

Thanks Kratose. Just took a peek at the roots and holy moly! Some of them are completely to the bottom of the rez tank and laying on the bottom. I just had to take some shots of them. I also noticed some algae starting on top of the rapid rooters so I plugged the top with some neoprene covers.

God I love root porn. Thanks for the rep Pimp.
Heres one for you.

your setup is looking great, and those long roots are great, do you plan on leaving in as a spray/mist system once the roots develop their mass?

Yes Bobby, I'll be putting them into a flower system which is basically the same setup but with two 4x4 PVC posts rather than all in a big tub. I'll have to keep a watch on these things to make sure the roots don't get tangled. Also, I'm modifying Stinkbud's system slightly; I'm using a shallower tub because I don't want to run out of vertical room, and since I don't have a lot of floor space in my grow cabinet I'll have most of the rez under the posts, saving about a foot of space.

Here are some shots from this morning; they are doing great and the shocking thing about this is that I've done NO maintainence to this system since I started it up three weeks ago. I let it go on just plain tap water for a week or 10 days, then I added 1/4 strength nutes. About a week later I added a little more nutes and some pH down. I also added some Liquid Karma but the cultures are all in the bottom of the rez; I don't think they can colonize the roots in this system so I'll probably be leaving that out of the flowering system.

sweet, they look very healthy and robust for going with out food for the first week.
The roots look nice and healthy, all white with no brown, nice job!

how long are you gonna veg for?

were the seeds feminised?

kudos

would it make sense to say that the plants are not using nutes as they would under HPS because they are building less dense/complicated plant material due to the low lumen available?

its like a body builder, you have two guys, they both eat the same thing and drink the same thing for a period of time, only one is taking protien shakes all during his workout and even after and before. Which one will build more and more dense muscle.

not trying to put your system down at all, your plants are fantastic and you are saving a bunch of money too.

This is just something that i am wondering, maybe im wrong, and thats ok, just wanted to know what others think

those babies look just as good as healthy babies from under an MH, dependant upont what happens with PP's outcome of flowering under LED's will dictate wheter its worth it to veg only and use LED as supplemental light too a HPS setup.

But I was thinking of an LED setup with two 300 watters
sry, not hijacking thread.

420 I'm not exactly sure how long I'll veg for but when they get to 1' tall, that will be it. These seem to be bushing out, growing wider than tall and that's exactly what I was hoping for. Bobby, the plants are using the nutes. I don't know how much more robust a plant could get in this short of time. Last year I grew in soil and in rock wool but this blows them out of the water. You have to consider the strain also. I have a MH and HPS light; I'm not using them because I choose not to. I don't believe for a minute they would increase my plants size or vitality. I've got 5 nodes showing so far, two since Friday. HPS makes them stretch a lot more than these LEDs and that tells me one thing: the plants are getting more of what they need. Just because you blaze your plants with 1000w of "light" doesn't mean you're really doing what's best for the plant. Less than 10% of a HPS light is usable to the plant; that means that the rest of it is wasted. I've used 65w multi-spectrum CFL's, MH, HPS, and now LED's and T5's. From what I've seen so far, the system I'm using now is top shelf - and I'm not having to worry about heat and dangerous bulbs. A "friend" of mine on RIU almost burned his house down when his HPS bulb blew; it totally destroyed his grow op, about $8,000 worth of gear - and his plants.

did you use aeroponics on those systems as well?

i believe aero is the fastest out of all growing methods, therefore that plays a part too, that is the way i will be going next time.

safe way is the best way to go, can't deny that at all, i think i'll use my flo and my old ass led boards(3x) next time around, hopefully i get results like you

This is a sort of hybrid aero/hydro system actually. I would love to call it a true aero but it's not; the droplets are too big for that. In true aero systems the droplet size must be 5 microns or less. There is only one way I know of to get that and that is with an ultrasonic fogger. I'll be using one for my clones; I figure they need the most help and I don't have to have such a big fogger. I have a Nutramist fogger with a Teflon head; it makes a fog that's just like smoke. You can put your hand through it and it doesn't even feel wet, that's because the droplets are 4 microns in size. I'm really looking forward to seeing how fast the clones come off. BTW, the plants are growing up into the LED's this morning. I put my hand on them and they are so cool to the touch (ok, barely warm) that I didn't even bother raising the lights. I want to see how it affects the plants with them being right on top of them. I've read that the energy absorbed by the plants reduces, not linear but squared to the distance. Hope I make sence there. Anyway, it will be very interesting to see how they respond. Lets see someone put their HID touching their plants, right?

cruzer101 said:

Hey Pimp,

You know, I am a fan of LEDs and want to use the high power ones. I probaly will after I see this finish. But with enough airflow and a cool tube you can. I have a 400w in a diy tube and with 120cfm going through it at ambiant temps around 75 degrees you can hold the tube in your hand.


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What DIY did you use for your light tube?

I read about that in your journal Cruzer! You used a Pyrex baking tube didn't you? That would sure take care of the heat problem. This morning the plants were actually up into - not just touching but smashed into - the LED's. No burns or anything. Here's some shots I took of them after raising the lights. I'll be out of town til Monday so I had to raise it a good bit. They are working on their 6th node now. I'll be throwing them into flower next week probably.





I don't know what's going on with this one; still has yet to show the first true leaves and it came up with the rest of them. It's got nice roots but absolutely nothing past seedling development. I'll no doubt yank and toss it but I'll keep it for now.

knarley pics dude!!

hmmm as for the little one... yea i would pull it as well.
haha i cant believe it sprouted with the rest of them and it still a seedling!

OK, got the flower unit ready to go and I've been shopping my ass off today. I needed to buy another Eco Plus 395 pump; found one at a good price and figured I might should get a spare too. I got a new TDS meter; the one I bought from stealth hydro is a POS. Got some pH calibration stuff coming and... a CO2 controller and regulator!! Yes, I know I'll be able to actually watch them grow, LOL. I don't know what I'm going to do if they grow any faster. I also found some 55w LED's on ebay for $100. I'm going to snag another couple for my veg unit I just finished (yep, I've been busy today!). I'm keeping the 3 LED's in my flower unit; they're working too good to wimp out and hook up the HPS. I (gently) yanked the itty bitty seedling and removed most of the rapid rooter, put it in a neoprene sleeve and stuck it back in the veg unit. Can't hurt anything; I was going to toss it anyway.

Hi potpimp,

I apologize ahead of time if i got your plan wrong as I have read so many different threads here in the past 5 days and dont have time to re read this one.

Are you flowering with LED as the only light source?

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id toss the little one and spread out the healthy ones to the other side so they have more room to stretch their legs and collect more light. Have you thought about trying scrog? its not too late

LOL, love the avatar 420! I'm going to use the LED's and the two T5's that are part of the unit I have now. I'm so impressed with these lights that I want to give them a chance and see what I get. At worst I'll get some fluffy bud, at best I might disprove the notion that HPS is the only light worth flowering with. It's worth it to me for the experiment. I'm not going to worry about the little one; I'll be putting these into flower next week after less than a monthfrom seed. I'm not going to let them get much bigger than a foot tall in the veg unit. I will be ID'ing each one and after a week in flower I'll be taking some clones. Hopefully, a week or so later I'll be able to sex these and toss out the males and any male clones that came from them. They are really smelling sweet now, not too strong but just really nice.

I don't have as much space as Stinkbud so I had to modify my unit a little. I'm using 10 gal. Roughneck's rather than the 18's; that saves 15" of vertical space. I tucked the rez under the tubes to maximize the usable length. I only have 47" actual space in the grow cab so I can have 5 plants in each tube. Rather than have the water flow come into the end of the tubes I had to route it through the side to save a few more inches. These little mods made it possible for me to have an additional two plants in flower.






I thought I'd post some pix of the new flower unit.

PP, that looks real fucking PIMP man!!!!!

But I gotta ask again, have you considered scrog?

The general consensus is the lower watt LEDs lack canopy penetration power, by scrogging, and you can with his system you have so professionally built, you will spread out the available light evenly, rather than just have it focussed on the tops.

Once again, wonderful job and wonderful pics, thanks