More prep going on - $250 USD so far

Having identified a great soil that can be had from a major chain store, early today I droped a C-Note at Lowes, and another C-Note and a half (not to be confused with a cenote, or a serrote) at the AMAZON Zone…

I have a two outlet timer, a 420 scope, a humidifier control (Inkbird) and a humidifier (Honeywell) on the way.

At Lowes I bagged (literally) five sacks of Sta-Green soil, a bag of Hardwood bark Mulch (for the bottoms of the buckets) some lamp parts to make some hanging light fixtures to suspend LED “Bright Sticks” directly where I want them, a bag of blood meal (they were out of bone meal…), some sulphur powder that is intended to dust roses with, and a bag of “Ironite”, it was a quick and highly compressed trip.

I did not find “Bat Guano” or Azomite. I also forgot about lime - which is a thing a local grower recommended…

The flower fertilizers there were not even close to the flower power mix percentages of the products offered here.

I guess I should order some from ILGM.

I wish I could find a potassium (K) source that was cheap, and I have a tip for those of you who like to save egg shells to use as a calcium source: BLAST them in a blender with some water, to break them up and mix into the soil. Just dropping egg shells in a garden is a slow and disappointing way to go about it that just makes your planters look like a trash can.

~ The shells take forever to break down and become available in the ground unless you do this.

Comments?

PS: Picture one shows the light and fixture off so you can see it. Picture two is with all lights ON


All you need is some parts and a screwdriver - you can hang as many of these in by your plants as you need to, and LED’s use less power to make a lot more light!

Right now it is hanging by the power cord, and I suppose that’s okay because they don’t weigh much. But at the top of the socket if you look - I have installed a loop finial that can have a chain or a wire, or a rope attached to support the weight of it.

NO REFLECTOR is used, so that it can radiate away any heat generated

Something I like about LED lights is that they are not only power conservative, but also generate very little heat - so that the heat and power signature of your grow space is kept to a minimum that would be considered normal

Stealth in all things, right?

If I get real paranoid I will go into the attic and make sure there is a duct attached to the ceiling fan to carry any “SMELL” outside and exhaust it to the great outdoors. The kit for that consists of a flexible hose like a drier hose, and a vent that is installed at the roof edge. That way my attic will not come to smell like a cannibis field…

Most modern bathrooms have a ceiling fan to carry away humid air from taking a shower (among other things like smells). But I have noticed most home builders and contractors take shortcuts and never vent things like that to the outside of the house - they just blow all of that into the attic which is a bad thing anyway.

*THAT is a serious home owner tip for you anyway - get up into your attic and look to see if the grade school dropouts who built your place took short-cuts. I just about guarantee that they did…

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@FrikkinFrank i love the humidty and temp controller switches; makes a stable environment much easier! What size/watt are those LED?

I don’t have a box handy (that they came in) to look it up, but as I recall they were equal to a 100 watt bulb in output, but only used 40 watts. The heat they produce is negligable.

I DO know that they are far brighter than any common light bulb, and have a bluish cast to them that makes them seem more WHITE

~ I LUV the !@#$ing things - we should have gone over to LED technology a lot sooner

LED’s absolutely BLAST OUT LIGHT with a whole lot less power, and their durability and longevity is constantly increasing

~You can hang an entire constellation of them around your plants if you want to, and from what I have read online they come in many wavelengths

I am convinced that LED’s are the wave (length) of the future

Now if only the nutrients are good… :sunglasses:

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@FrikkinFrank i think you need some bigger lights
Let some others weigh in
@bob31 @Donaldj @Covertgrower @Screwauger

@FrikkinFrank most users are running 300-450w LED lights. I think some even have higher. I currently run 3 450w led viparspectra in my 4x4x6.5 tent

I would need to know the size of the grow space? @FrikkinFrank I don’t see that posted, though i could have missed it! @VelcroThumb

@FrikkinFrank take a look at this stuff here from amazon. Pretty cheap and I use it when needed and it makes into a great follier spray to use. Looks like its not available at the moment but you might find it somewhere else. Its called DueceDuece. Dont know why its not showing properly below. Will have to contact support here. Anyway, you might try it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0040IVM5K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Going to try another link. Its for a quart size for 24 bucks. I paid 14 for the 16 ounce size and is plenty as you dont use much when you use it.
https://www.amazon.com/Humboldt-Deuce-DEUCE-QUART-723168/dp/B00AE14VBY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1509574121&sr=8-3&keywords=deuce+deuce

True watts is still the standard

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This is the time
The time is now
Begin at once
Later is too late…

  • a simple stoned poem by me…

You do what you want - but what I go with is resullts

If I was a child again, I’d be just the same
So never forgive me - I am what I want
Echoes (echoes) in time…
Echo’s…
Oh whoa…

What works does, N’est ce pas?

*If you play music I hope you make a song out of the above

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WATTS are directly additive, I know that from electrical experience

They have nothing to do with square area factors. A “WATT” is a measure of power, and if it is concentrated in a small area it is cumulataive. “LUMENS” are a different thing…

(this is the part where everyone argues about it)

Go right ahead…

Correctly applied lumens are a different thing

“Don’t ever forgive me, say I told you so…”

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@frikkinfrank. How many of those bulbs do you have for how many plants. Your harvest could not be as large without enough watts.

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I only just began instituting this idea - I grow in a bath tub in a bathroom I don’t use (I shower - taking a bath seems to me like the dirty water stays on you instead of rinsing off) so the lumen factor I am measuring with a meter I just got, incomplete so far because I just began to use it also.

The main thing tho is that I can hang as many as I want to make, being an inventor in the first place - I like to try new stuff just to see what it does. And this seemed to me like I could hang a whole constellation of them in there and not make it too hot for the plants. I only worry that I might overdo it, so the lumen scale on the meter I got yesterday is coming into use. Accuracy seems to me very important, and I want a correct amount of light: not too much and not too little

The bulbs (?) are rated at 100 watt equivalent, but say nothing about the amount of lumens generated, so it is a guessing game

~ They actually use only 40 watts but are amazingly bright for their power usage

So far I have only added one - the LED grow light itself is rated for 1200 watts whilst using only 180 or so - and that produces a light that i often think of as “MARTIAN”, because it is so red. When I take pictures of my plants I have to use software to correct the color

“Lord bless my plants - they should be right in time for Christmas”
~I get maudlin at times, don’t mind me…

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@FrikkinFrank awesome! Im a newbie too, but just from reading on this forum for 3 months i have come across lots of info. I have found there are 1000 right ways to do it and 1000 wrong ways! Everyone has to use what they have with the space they have!
Your MARTIAN light may be a bloom light. Is there a switch or 2 on it? Mine have a switch for Veg (which is the whiter/bluer light) and a switch for Bloom (which is more on the red/orange spectrum)
Different wavelengths of light do different things and the Bloom (red/orange) mostly mimics the wavelength of harvesting season! Lets ask some others to make sure!
Also @FrikkinFrank if you use the @ symbol followed by our name, it will tag us and let us know you have responded! I only saw this response by scrolling through posts!
@bob31 @Donaldj @Countryboyjvd1971 @Covertgrower @dbrn32

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In theory the grow light I am using is overkill for the space they are in, so anything added is more.

Since this is a first grow only time will tell, but I am very hopeful and these are the biggest plants I have ever had

What YOU just said has lit up (no pun intended) a little light in my brain - I had no idea that a light was available that you could switch like that… Who makes it? Where can I get one?

@Velcro Thumb

I’m only growing for me, if you ever had gout you would realize why. That shit fooking hurts! I’ve gotta escape alcohol…

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@FrikkinFrank you dont need spaces when you tag… so to tag me or anyone just @VelcroThumb! Its also easy if you just hit the @ symbol and wait a sec, cuz a list of users will pop up and you can just click who you want to tag!
The light is use is a Viparspectra 450wLED… i have three of them! But you can find many different brands! I tagged some of the other go to guys on the forum, theu are a wealth of knowledge! If they dont know it, they know who does!
@Donaldj @Countryboyjvd1971 @bob31 @MattyBear @Screwauger sorry for the double tags guys, just wanted to get our friend @FrikkinFrank some info!!!

Veg switch

Bloom switch

Fixture

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RIGHT ON! And thank you…

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@FrikkinFrank welcome bro! Theres tons of helpful gardeners here… some are first timers and some are OGs lol

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Watts depend on the size of the grow area. What size is the area you’re lighting? @FrikkinFrank

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Not sure I agree with you 100%. But then again I wouldn’t argue that watts are a great measure either.

If you want to see the reason for the “arguing” try growing under a 500 watt halogen bulb. 500 Watts is a lot, and they have a high lumen rating. But they don’t grow well at all. In that case, watts and lumens both completely useless.

Now if you take leds for example, that have the same light spectrum, I would almost certainly opt for the one with a higher lumen rating. But if you selected by lumen rating alone, a colder white of the same led will almost always have a higher lumen count. That’s due to the difference in phosphor coating. The problem with doing that is cold whites don’t produce the bud density in flower that warm whites do. So where does that leave us? Certainly not at a “lumens rule all” mentality.

The best balance of all these measurements we have is photosynthetic active radiation, or par. You can target par levels for different stages of plant life and be much more certain of what you’re getting. You still need to consider light spectrum some though. Blue/red led combos traditionally have very low lumen measure, but higher par rating per watt than several types of lightning. Something like the hlg-550 (example because I know measurements off top of head) produces similar par readings to a 1000 watt hps while using nearly half the power. But that’s one of the most efficient led grow lights available. You certainly aren’t getting that kind of efficiency cheaply or from modified Home Depot bulbs. That doesn’t mean you can’t grow tasty weed at low cost, because you certainly can. But it’s too easy to throw any single measurement right out the window when comparing grow lights.

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@Covertgrower he seems to have a 1200w, but ssys the light is reddish… maybe he got a bloom spectrum only? He also has some 100w (draw 40w) LED lightbulbs