modular overkill led striplight build

cobshopgrow said:

could do that, have one of these generic huge holes growshop nets unused which ican quickly apply.
maybe a big defoil first or?

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After 2nd net defol will be harder

yep, so lets wait with that.

all good in here.

buds setting in.


color is fine, tips are pretty fine, only one can complain about is maybe some slight tacoing, curling on the outer edges.
temp are pretty spot on at about 25-28C ambient temp.
RH is always over 50 (while can be intracanopy its higher!).
EC out is about 1.5, in is 1.35 atm.
PH is ...not good am happy when i can flush it down to 6.5, even i buffered the hydroton for almost 2 weeks before use and washed it at least 4 times.
on the other hand, good run so far, i dont complain much about anything.

one have a clearer picture for the slight tacos then me?
heat, dont think so.
Nutrients, maybe
Light intenisty, maybe am a t a good 800ppfd at the tops, could be with a good 700 this wont be, idk.
wind, dont think so, but what do i know.

Hello. Are you making any changes to NPK ratios? Or are you sticking with fixed NPK? What are your thoughts with this run as you have 6-8 weeks left?

good question, still have a bit to play there.
atm i go lower with the nitrogen.
meaning, less Calcium Nitrate, about 4.5g a 10l,
try to get it below 100ppm N,
Calcium level is always similar to nitrogen (slight higher, simply calcinit on RO water).
i give almost 7g 5-20-30 basesalt a 10l, to have about 60ppm phoshor and about 150ppm K.
magnesium wise i try to get a way with a value below 50ppm, but not sure if that good or bad.
not sure at which point i use some MKP, i normally use it in low doses, about a g a 10l.

basically 1:1 basesalt with calcinit and a bit more then half of the calcnit as epsom worked good for transition.

i think bugbee is saying give 120ppm nitrogen always, 120 is a good value for veg for sure, just not sure if its needed in flower.
he recommend 20-10-20 all the time at a EC of 1.35 with 0.4 from his Tap Water.
He is also the opinion our plants dont need that much P.
thats for sure a good basic orientation i always try to keep his infos in my backhead at least.
my EC isnt much higher f.e. atm and i gave mostly around 120ppm nitrogen so far.

defoiled a bit yesterday.

as you see tunnel the underdog took over, "runt" back right.
thyre praying hard and seem to be overall happy.

just these crocodile teeth here n there make me still scratch m head.

lookin a bit more servere in close up as in real life.

overall goal is probably not to overdo it too early with nutes and light.
800ppfd and i think more is kinda stress for them (no CO2, while good temps atm).

cobshopgrow said:

good question, still have a bit to play there.
atm i go lower with the nitrogen.
meaning, less Calcium Nitrate, about 4.5g a 10l,
try to get it below 100ppm N,
Calcium level is always similar to nitrogen (slight higher, simply calcinit on RO water).
i give almost 7g 5-20-30 basesalt a 10l, to have about 60ppm phoshor and about 150ppm K.
magnesium wise i try to get a way with a value below 50ppm, but not sure if that good or bad.
not sure at which point i use some MKP, i normally use it in low doses, about a g a 10l.

basically 1:1 basesalt with calcinit and a bit more then half of the calcnit as epsom worked good for transition.

i think bugbee is saying give 120ppm nitrogen always, 120 is a good value for veg for sure, just not sure if its needed in flower.
he recommend 20-10-20 all the time at a EC of 1.35 with 0.4 from his Tap Water.
He is also the opinion our plants dont need that much P.
thats for sure a good basic orientation i always try to keep his infos in my backhead at least.
my EC isnt much higher f.e. atm and i gave mostly around 120ppm nitrogen so far.

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I wonder if continued N will slow down the speed of fade and maintain that chlorophyl green closer to end weeks? Right now all seems good for you. Lets see how it goes with your chosen regime. Love the ex-runt back right of tent.

All this talk of spectrometers in other threads reminds me of colourimeters and photometers. I remember reading about a diy colourimeter for nitrate testing. It was open source, but turns out the developers created an enzyme based product for use with it. So you need to purchase their reagent/enzyme.

Interesting to wonder if such a colourimeter or photometer could be adapted to provide accurate NPK test results using common reagents like can be bought from Amazon.

Similar instruments for fishtank keepers can measure very low levels with good accuracy. Ones for water quality and soil measurement are more expensive than the ones used by fishkeepers.

About to pull the trigger on 100 of these 1 ft EB3 strips. Any reason I shouldn't?

nothing wrong with this, you could compare the pricing of the regular EB3 on future electronicswith the slims and see what comes out per diode.

@ tunnel
going below 4g a 10l calcium nitrate make them fade quite quick to what i could observe.

i havent digged deep in to LED colorimeters and other camera cd disc based diy solutions.
there are development kits out there for led based spectrometers, dont have the name at hand, even describing how to use it in a growth chamber.
but to get some readings is a diff. story then to get them in relation to real ppm, spectra etc.
think with the recent tech there, you wont even need such a enzyme (thinks that mentioned in a comment there too).
the same technology is used to measure pretty much every substance by spectral analyse and it looks the new hanna tools are based on this too.
i like what they did there and i didnt knew the phosphorus unit, its so cheap, maybe worth a try.
they also have one for magnesium, could be nice for coco users.
some of their units are a bit more pricey and you need to dilute your solution to make it readable.
while hanna at least offer some propper readings in the end.

so far i thought its maybe the cheapest to send a probe in to a laboratory for the cost of about 30 bucks.
a 100 to 200 invested there would probably tell one enough to have the grow dialed in.

Is calcinit your only source for N or do you use others like KNO3?

There are lots of sensors out there, and so many possibilities. But what tools are necessary or essential can be whittled down. Colourimeters and photometers are simple, for experienced diy'ers. Just thought of you, and figured it might be of interest.

The point is that if a simple opensource tool like the one above can detect very slight colour changes. Then setting up calibration standards using those reagents supplied in the cheap soil kits could possibly provide surprising accuracy. Really of interest if people want to delve into what the plants are using.

Silencio said:

About to pull the trigger on 100 of these 1 ft EB3 strips. Any reason I shouldn't?

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You could use 2 or 4 ft. strips?

oh yeah, check the needed size, i went for these 340mm as 2 of these are a realtive good for a meter by meter.

calcinit is the main source, of N, the basesalt do contain also 5 percent, mostly, nitrate very little ammonia.
i have another basesalt with 3 percent, a 3-17-36 and one crazy 2-9-40.
a switch to 3-17-36 salt could be sensefull, maybe now, maybe later, maybe not at all.
ill see if i make the complete grow with 5-20-30, calcinit, epsom, mkp, not sure.

the fading below 4g calcinit was probably with the 3-17-36 if i remeber right.

I do so appreciate your thought process.

about D21 of flower and all is pretty well.

leaf color is near to perfect.

in a edge

more central under the light

i went to about 900ppfd and hope they can take it now. 200W mainlight, 20W 660nm red, 2h 8w 365,390nm UVA at noon and the buddies running full 12h at about 63W. plus 730nm 4min EOD after lights out ( 730nm starting 15min before lights out).


Temps vary a bit ,but are mainly 26-29C at day.
EC is about 1.3, runoff is about 1.5, PH is mad even with PH 5 in, almost PH 7 comes out.
about a 100ppm N 60 P 170 K 90 Ca 50 Mg 60 S

D27
needed to raise the light a bit as i got very slight bleaching.
theyre bathing in a freaking even soup of light.

lil defoil today.

900ppfd, or 200w mainlight, 20W 660nm reds and 63W buddies are too much light for my plants.
i went for some days to 210W mainlight to test and it accelerated the bleaching.
the usual bleaching is setting in, have to reduce the light intensity.
technically it shouldnt be too much light, but it is.
Temps are fine beeing 27-29C, beeing quite low this time with the EC, 1.3 in, about 1.5 out,
feeding them with sane nutrient ratios.
Airflow is good, quite some fresh air, Co2 PPM therefore just the ambient 450ppm.

The bleaching should become better when i go lower with the watts,
as always, just having problems to accept it, 700ppfd should work, 800 idk, 900 too much allready.
Not expecting my flowers to take 1200qmol, but a 800 average and maybe a good 900 at a top would b nice.

the fixture shouldnt give much more then 650ppfd if we say the whites and 660nm together give 3 qmol a watt.
Plus the absolute realistic 120ppfd from the teknink buddies makes 770ppfd, not even 800ppfd for the sqaure meter.

takes a few days till they bleach, but you can bleach them.
tricky is they dont drop anymore from oversaturation like in veg, where the drop was a good inidcator.

cobshopgrow said:

View attachment 4598803
900ppfd, or 200w mainlight, 20W 660nm reds and 63W buddies are too much light for my plants.
i went for some days to 210W mainlight to test and it accelerated the bleaching.
the usual bleaching is setting in, have to reduce the light intensity.
technically it shouldnt be too much light, but it is.
Temps are fine beeing 27-29C, beeing quite low this time with the EC, 1.3 in, about 1.5 out,
feeding them with sane nutrient ratios.
Airflow is good, quite some fresh air, Co2 PPM therefore just the ambient 450ppm.

The bleaching should become better when i go lower with the watts,
as always, just having problems to accept it, 700ppfd should work, 800 idk, 900 too much allready.
Not expecting my flowers to take 1200qmol, but a 800 average and maybe a good 900 at a top would b nice.

the fixture shouldnt give much more then 650ppfd if we say the whites and 660nm together give 3 qmol a watt.
Plus the absolute realistic 120ppfd from the teknink buddies makes 770ppfd, not even 800ppfd for the sqaure meter.
View attachment 4598802
takes a few days till they bleach, but you can bleach them.
tricky is they dont drop anymore from oversaturation like in veg, where the drop was a good inidcator.

Click to expand...

How much of that ppfd is blue or uv?

its the spetrum above, uva just a lil 2h or so.
blue comes from mainly from the 3000k 80cri and a little from the 4000k buddies.
dont want to inhibit the cell expansion atm so much, will use more uva end of flower to frost them a bit up (if that works).

think its mostly a intensity problem, i bleached once some clones hard with 6500k in my veg box, just needed 45W there.
big question is if a little bleaching is to accept as long the buds grow bigger, while i am not sure if its not simply pure stress, too much stress.

Very nice to compare posts #416 and 417. You saw improvement in growth/plant response last grow, when you backed off on light level. What you are demonstrating is that intensity seems to need gradual buildup over time. Also your main light seems to be contributing factor.

Nice to see them fill out. Look forward to next update.

yes, normally they get better when i reduce the intensity.
i digged the internet for PAR charts for 400w hps and 315 cmh to compare my readings to something knowen... well mine are much higher, by a lot often.
i increased very slowly, am really carefull with my dimmer as you can see in the pictures.
the plants just never got used to it, i hit the wall it seems.
some days even had almost 1000ppm Co2 in the air temps just slight under 30C, they transpire, thats fine.

first i just raised the light, but since yesterday i dial it down as i hardly can go higher with the light.
not having a real problem using less watts, just... well you know.
the bud development is good to my eyes, there i am happy overall.