Little LED grow experiment

Hey guys. I made my first thread a few days ago. Before I was pointed out to the fact that there is an LED specific section.

Here is the original thread:
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/628567-cheap-led-panel-grow-test.html

It's day 6 now, I just thought I'd give an update.

It looks like one of the seeds will not make it. It popped it's head out but just kinda stayed there, in the shell.

I planted a Blue Rhino seed from Positronics to replace the one that will probably not make the cut.

Here are 2 pictures of Martha that I took just now, she comes from a feminized Jock Horror Automatic seed from Nirvana Seeds.




These here are pictures of the current grow box for those too lazy to check out the older thread (You're not missing much if you didn't)!

sometimes you have to pull the seed shell off the cotyledons and help the plant out a little

So what kind of LED panels are these and how many watts and spectrum ?

Thanks

Yeah I thought about that but I would not be able to do this at this point without damaging it.

I actually just tried poking at it a bit with a paper clip and it seems to be anchored down pretty well. It's weird but I think the seed might've sunk down too deep and stayed under for too long as it grew horizontally for some reason. The stem looks brownish and sick, I'm pretty sure it got mold or something. I'll wait and see. I took it out of the grow box but I didn't scrap it yet.

I did not put perlite in this pot as I didn't have any when I planted that seed and I think the soil got way too compacted. As soon as I noticed how much this soil kept moisture I went out and purchased perlite and mixed it in. It made a world of difference.

EDIT:

Sorry RainerRocks I had not seen your post when I posted this.

These are cheap LED panels I bought on eBay. I bought 10 panels in total, 6 whites (I hear those are actually blues) and 4 Red/Orange/Blue/White. The ratio for the R/O/B/W is 13/6/2/2, the panels have 230 LEDs each. They are rated at 18w each but I think they consume 16w. I am currently using 6 whites and 2 "reds" as you can see.

I will turn this grow box into a small grow room soon. I will add 2 T8s to the grow so this will unfortunately not be pure LED for flowering. I would love to test it out but I don't have enough red panels yet.

EDIT 2:

This is what the seller says about the LEDs used. Not sure how accurate this is.

Wavelength (Quad-Band):
Red: 660nm
Orange: 612nm
Blue: 470nm
White: 6500k Daylight

I got two of the same red/orange/white/blue ones in a rubbermaid grow lol, gonna try and run them all the way through veg to flower. They seem to be keeping the clones/seedlings happy
Might get some more panels down the line. I like how you can combine these ones pretty cool. lol
Totally awesome I'll get to check someone else's results. I'll probably have to man up and start a thread someday.
Like how you boxed it in with em nice

How do you subscribe to a thread?

lol nm figured it out subbed

Kyanite393 said:

I got two of the same red/orange/white/blue ones in a rubbermaid grow lol, gonna try and run them all the way through veg to flower. They seem to be keeping the clones/seedlings happy
Might get some more panels down the line. I like how you can combine these ones pretty cool. lol
Totally awesome I'll get to check someone else's results. I'll probably have to man up and start a thread someday.
Like how you boxed it in with em nice

How do you subscribe to a thread?

Click to expand...

Now I can show you a picture. A friend of mine has 3 plants growing using 2 whites and 2 "Quadbands" They are 2 months old now. They're not really set up properly or anything, it was a little experiment he was trying out. The first month, they only had 2 white panels. Now I think they're only under 2 quads.

They're pretty stretched but that's to be expected, these LEDs are pretty weak. I'm planning to just surround the plants with light sources.

Edit:

No need to point out that the pots are small, that picture was taken just before they were transplanted I believe.

Here is what I got going, kinda temporary working on lining two bigger rubbermaids and making a hanging system for the lights.



The big one is Wapa, below that Fire Og, other clone is Tahoe OG and the seedlings are querkle bagseed.
Buddy gave me the clones for free they were extras headed for trash
The one kinda out frame is root shocked might not make it...

The Fire OG and Seedlings have been under these lights longest.

So you guys are flowering under these? Is it your first grow, or do you have pictures of previous harvests?

Edit - I saw Chronokool's thread, I guess this is your first grow. NVM! Good luck, man.

I'm going to be flowering under 10 of these panels, so 2300 LEDs and some T8s. This is my first grow with artificial lighting.

Kyanite393 said:

Here is what I got going, kinda temporary working on lining two bigger rubbermaids and making a hanging system for the lights.

View attachment 2549216View attachment 2549217

The big one is Wapa, below that Fire Og, other clone is Tahoe OG and the seedlings are querkle bagseed.
Buddy gave me the clones for free they were extras headed for trash
The one kinda out frame is root shocked might not make it...

The Fire OG and Seedlings have been under these lights longest.

Click to expand...

Oh sweet...i have a Wappa seed...i'll be interested to see how this goes.

PetFlora said:

The question is 'How airy will the buds be?'

Click to expand...

Yeah, for sure. I want to know if the light has to pierce through the bud much to give compact nugs, or if just having the buds surrounded by light at all times will do an OK job.

Thank you for subbing! I will post new pictures soon, probably as soon as Blue Rhino decides to come out, if it does.

Growth is partially about how many lumens your plant is getting, notated as umoles/sft. But there is more to it than that, like CRI (Color Rendition Index). I believe the CRI of your fixtures is extremely low, so even though you have a lot of them, most likely you will wind up with small plants and airy buds.

My thoughts, so time will tell

Do not feel I am discouraging you. You are providing a service to others by doing this.

I often grow against the grain (accepted truths), so...

full speed ahead young SkyWalker

You can have a light with high CRI that produces airy bud.
CRI = 88.8


And yet a light with very low CRI can grow dank. *ahem HPS ahem*
CRI = ~22


My 2 cents.

Well, mostly. BUT that SPG is full of peaks, where it should have higher intensity in the non peak areas. StarDustSailor's new graph

White +red Spectrum

PetFlora said:

Growth is partially about how many lumens your plant is getting, notated as umoles/sft. But there is more to it than that, like CRI (Color Rendition Index). I believe the CRI of your fixtures is extremely low, so even though you have a lot of them, most likely you will wind up with small plants and airy buds.

My thoughts, so time will tell

Do not feel I am discouraging you. You are providing a service to others by doing this.

I often grow against the grain (accepted truths), so...

full speed ahead young SkyWalker

Click to expand...

No worries! I am not easily discouraged. I'm doing this for my own educational purposes before all but I thought I might as well share!

Going against the grain is never the most cost effective way of learning, but I'll be damned if it's not the best way of doing so! With all the misinformation on the internet, especially about this particular subject, I feel like I must do my own experiments.

I've read Greg Greens Grow Bible in the past 2 days, but it did not cover LEDs.

Thank you for the words of encouragement and again, no worries about "discouraging" me. It's not gonna happen and I know it was not your intention.

Maybe I should throw in my lightsaber as extra blue light! I think it's an LED strip that lights up the blade!

ThisIsDreDay said:

These are cheap LED panels I bought on eBay. I bought 10 panels in total, 6 whites (I hear those are actually blues) and 4 Red/Orange/Blue/White. The ratio for the R/O/B/W is 13/6/2/2, the panels have 230 LEDs each. They are rated at 18w each but I think they consume 16w. I am currently using 6 whites and 2 "reds" as you can see.

I will turn this grow box into a small grow room soon. I will add 2 T8s to the grow so this will unfortunately not be pure LED for flowering. I would love to test it out but I don't have enough red panels yet.

EDIT 2:

This is what the seller says about the LEDs used. Not sure how accurate this is.

Wavelength (Quad-Band):
Red: 660nm
Orange: 612nm
Blue: 470nm
White: 6500k Daylight

Click to expand...

I use panels similar to these as sidelights to fill out low light areas. I was thinking of getting some more since they work better than mylar. I think if you changed the ceiling of your borg cube with a full panel of T5 HOs with wide spectrum tubes it might perform incredibly well. Nonetheless I'm interested to see how well this grow does.

PurpleBuz said:

I use panels similar to these as sidelights to fill out low light areas. I was thinking of getting some more since they work better than mylar. I think if you changed the ceiling of your borg cube with a full panel of T5 HOs with wide spectrum tubes it might perform incredibly well. Nonetheless I'm interested to see how well this grow does.

Click to expand...

I'm actually going to be moving this to a walk-in closet soon. I will be adding some T8s since I found a fixture in the basement. I may upgrade them to T5s by the time they go into flowering. I will put the tubes vertically, not over the plants. I may set up some sort of rotating table on the ground at some point.

Day 8 update.

The Blue Rhino seed I planted has sprouted! It's growing kinda weird though. Should it still straighten itself out if it's surrounded by light sources?

Also, at around 3am this morning I decided to put the pot containing Blue Rhino behind my laptop exhaust and it popped out within 30 minutes. I am aware that heat does make a difference but that was amazing. I caught it in the act of popping the shell. It looked gooey, it almost looked covered in a placenta like substance. Pretty cool stuff.

I am loving this, it's like Christmas every morning.


Here are two pictures of Martha, the Jock Horror. (8 days since I put the seed in the soil. I'm not sure if I specified but I did not bother germinating these seeds in paper, just straight in soil.)


Edit:
There is a third seed, it's dead for sure, it's sad because the root had gone down quite a bit but it never got rid of its shell. I removed it today but it's too late, plus the shell was pretty tough to take off. I accidentally ripped the seedling out of the ground. I put it back in there but I highly doubt it's going to spring back from this.