I am a first time grower. I feel like I have been training for this my whole adult life though. Since the state I live in has opened up to individuals growing their own in their homes I decided to give it a go. After over a year of targeted research and a couple of months in this is where I am at and could really use expert advice or clarity whether I am doing this right.
The setup:
3’x3’ grow tent
2x oscillating fans
1x cool mist humidifier
1x 4" 204cfm inline vent fan with carbon filter
1x 600w Full spectrum LED with veg/bloom lights separate
FoxFarm Ocean Forest in 5 gallon fabric pots
FoxFarm trio nutes
The Summary:
I ran them from seed to veg in solos. Transplanted to 5 gallon pots at week 4 topped them twice(manifolding) and started giving them nutes based on FoxFarm schedule. I was feeding them 32oz of trio/water like every fourth day while giving them 18/6 lighting at full spectrum(both switched on). Everything has been great since and they look healthy. They are now needing 32oz water/trio just about every other day and I am testing pH between 5.5-6.5 for run-off and giving them a mix that doesn’t exceed 6.5 pH. Growing environment is 70 degrees fahrenheit with 40%-50% humidity.
Last week I switched them to 12/12 only using the red(bloom) side of the LED. They are in complete and total darkness otherwise. At this point I am keeping the light about 30-40 cm above the canopy.
The Questions:
Using a 600w full spectrum LED light only, should I only have the red(bloom) light during their 12 hours of light?
Based on the pictures, is it worth it to lollipop now or wait till I see flower?
Based on the pictures, why am I seeing pistils and nothing is flowering yet?
If you’ve searched through this forum and found some names you view as teachers you’ll want to tag them. I didn’t invite to my own ramblings will most certainly on my next go. @ sign and add their name! But your ladies look lovely to me!
Do you know the actual wattage of lights used? This is an important datum. How many plants are you doing in the 3 X 3?
Plants have a fairly large node spacing which implies inadequate lighting, even in veg. I believe you are going to need more light to properly flower out your plants. And yes; both switches on.
Rule of thumb with blurple lights is 50 watts from the wall per square foot. You need 450 watts to get dense flower.
I will also suggest you look into a better light for your grow space. Most of us have started with those lights and also most of us have gotten rid of them as soon as possible too haha. I’m running 750 watts in a 32 square foot space but I’m running high efficacy lights. If electrical costs are high in your area that will be another reason to upgrade. I saved $60 the first month on my electric bill.
Thank you for your insight! I have alway had a gut feeling that the light I bought was too good to be true based on cost. Thoughts on a MARS TS1000 for a 3’x3’ space with 4 plants running?
Most likely it’s 100 true watts which is very inadequate
That’s 150 true watts, still too weak for a 3x3
Light is the most important investment you can make for growing cannabis, you’d do much better with a good light like a HLG 260w Rspec, which really does 260+ watts.
It takes 6, 7 or sometimes a few more days before you see signs of flowering. I just flipped what I have in my 3x3 on 12/31. I could see first signs of flower yesterday. You definitely need both switches on. I have a couple of 600W blurples. I use both of them to cover 2x2 space. It isn’t pretty but it does the job. With the four lights on Kill-A-Watt reads 330w
Mars TS1000 draws 150w. The 2000 draws 300. I would also run the blurple with either of the Mars.
you can look at HLG for comparable wattages. The 135 and 260 kits. A little more money but great lights. Another worth looking at Budget LED. They have a line build specifically for square tents.
If you double the watts during flower you will be happy you did. Your plants look like they are stretching a bit now. Try setting the light around 20 - 22"
Thank you Hellraiser. Do I scrap this grow and start over at this point? I don’t see myself having the scratch for that type of lighting atm and were almost 60days in. Anything suggestions to save the flower?
No reason to scrap it, ride it out and see what you can harvest, perhaps throw another cheap light in there to help out with the flowering if you can and plan for a light upgrade when budget allows. I’d go ahead and lollipop them so the plants don’t waste resources on lower buds that won’t amount to much.
I hate to tell people to buy another blurple but twice the light will definitely help bud growth if that’s all your budget can handle right now. Same for autos, very light hungry plants, though with autos you can run a longer light cycle (like 18/6 in flowering) so they get more light during their “day”, which would help when running under-powered lights.
I really appreciate it! I will run 1200w of blurple with all 4(veg/bloom) switches on at 12/12 for this run and see what happens. I will look into changing out lighting strategy moving forward. Honestly, I am very surprised I haven’t totally screwed this up already.
I ran a Mars TS3000 on a 3x4 tent for two grows. I just added the Mars TS1000 to supplement on the new 5x5 tent. Just looking at the TS1000 my first thought is you would be let down, as it is really is small and even considering the TS3000 in a 3x4 tent I felt like it was not quite enough. All that to say, TS1000 may still be lacking. I do like the lights thought.
As far as flowering, I just flipped mine on the 5th and I fully do not expect to see anything more than maybe pre-flower for next week to week and half.
You can see the lights and the size representation. Even though this is a 5x5 tent, just imagine that little light on the right being the one to illuminate your tent. That is the TS1000. I hope this helps.
(ILGM Critical Mass on left and little plants on right are some autos I stuck in there a month ago for an experiment.)
Most of us who have lurked on this forum for years, growing weed under LED’s have seen and experienced the phenomenon of Amazon blurple lights. Their claims have become so ridiculous that I can’t in good conscience recommend any of them.
There are a few good companies building quality lights with top-bin diodes: Horticulture Lighting Group is top of the list. California Lightworks, CHILled Logic and a couple of others.
The thing is; light is the engine that drives all processes in the tent: without adequate light, nutrient uptake is reduced, photosynthesis is of course lower, plant is less healthy and more susceptible to disease etc. Gotta start with the light.
You have another option; one I chose years ago. Build your own light. The components are readily available and there is a thread here:
The folks here are very helpful.
The state of the art in lighting currently goes to LED’s. But that’s good LED’s vs. crappy ones. The diodes available today do an absolutely amazing job.
Happy that I found all of you and this community! I have to say that I have no idea what I am doing other than the mass of info I have read over the years and can I tell you nothing really makes me feel comfortable with my experiment. Tons and tons of conflicting info out there on lighting and water/feeding data. Of course the things that seasoned growers say are common mistakes. I hope I can get this lighting thing figured out and get some type of yield. The seeds are from a random source so i’m totally blind other than knowing they are feminized.
I can’t wait to run the beans I got from NL seedbank once I have a better understanding. Thank you again for your input. Good luck and well wishes!
I can’t tell you how many times I found out my mistake was someone else’s methods. What helped me tremendously is that I kept and still keep a journal. The first one I would jot things down daily, even watering, and observations. I can’t even begin to count how many times I would look back to reference something and how helpful that was. Then at the end of the grow I did a lessons learned list. First one was something like 40 items. But I still refer back to that list. Now on third grow I don’t write near as much unless it is significant or out of the ordinary.
Mystery seeds are the best! My friend in New York grew a pretty nice plant this summer from a seed she found under her couch cushion. I have done two bagseed plants. First one was a total home run, a true Grape Ape if ever there was one. Second one turned out to be a male. Banana Hammock. And who knows what it exactly was. I have quite a few bagseeds saved up and stored in wine cooler in case of an apocalypse but really, the seed bank seeds are more of a guarantee on actually growing what you think you are growing.
Yes keeping a journal is key @KikiGee and really the only consistency based on my research. .
Well, they now have two of the not so 600w bluple LEDs and I am toying around with not running the vent fan 24 hours. This way I can experiment with letting the temp and humidity really rise during their 12 hours of light similar to what they might experience being outdoor. I have to keep an eye on them more consistently now though adding much more observations to my journal.
lollipopping was successful and I’m not seeing any signs of stress from it at the moment. I’m really surprised and mildly annoyed that I am not seeing any signs of flower though after 9 days in 12/12. All im seeing is continued growth upward which is making me worry about running out of space in the tent.
More veterans may have some input on the vent fan but here is my observations going from a full time Hurricane inline exhaust vent fan that ran on one speed nonstop the entire grow, and that speed seemed supersonic…to a Cloudline fan that has temp and humidity regulation: what surprised me right off was that the fan was quiet, and was not running all the time, but when necessary, and certainly not on these incredible tent sucking speeds. The grow is thriving so I can assume this working out well for them and this is a grow that it is critical I keep the humidity lower to prevent bud rot.
UPDATE: I think I’m seeing preflower on my plants but am having difficulty sexing them. @Hellraiser or @KikiGee can you tell me if I have male,female,hermie flowers coming through. Since there were a batch of mystery seeds I don’t know confidently now if they were feminized? If I do have a random male or two Id like to get them out of the tent ASAP. All photos are showing colas from all four plants. Thoughts?
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