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Do you guys have any basic recommendations on LED setups? I知 trying to setup a smallish DWC rig inside, but I知 not really sure where to start with lighting. Some of the stuff I see linked in this thread might be a bit much for my scale, and I壇 rather not get a really cheap setup and set my place on fire or have nothing grow.
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Aug 3, 2018 20:29
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ComradeBigT posted:Do you guys have any basic recommendations on LED setups? Budget? What do you want to grow? The majority of the information out there is going to be from weed sites such as https://www.rollitup.org/f/led-and-other-lighting.124/.
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Aug 3, 2018 20:44
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ComradeBigT posted:Do you guys have any basic recommendations on LED setups? Duck and Cover posted:Budget? What do you want to grow? The majority of the information out there is going to be from weed sites such as https://www.rollitup.org/f/led-and-other-lighting.124/. If you are going to grow leafy greens, you can probably get away with something cheap, but if you want a fruiting plant, you probably going to have to fork over some money. From my novice understanding, fruiting plants require two big ranges of light spectrum, so a lot of companies have been offering "full spectrum" lighting to cover all bases. Leafy greens require mostly one range spectrum of light, apparently a simple 5000K-6000K led light can be enough for lettuce. I bought a 6-pack of Barrina LED 4ft bars. So far it's been working good for me, but this is my first grow, so it still could ultimately fail me. If you want to try growing a pepper plant, cucumber plant, tomato plant, or something like that, maybe give something like the VIPARSPECTRA Reflector-Series 300W LED Grow Light a try. Should be good enough for a single plant. Various kinds of LED lighting to google: T5 LED light bar, LED COB grow light, LED quantum board, and LED strips.
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Aug 3, 2018 23:06
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Yeah, I should have been more specific, my plan was to start out with some more basic greens and maybe try some fruiting stuff down the line when I知 more comfortable with the whole thing. The info from you guys so far seems like a great start, and I値l take a look at that weed site too. Regardless I think I値l need to experiment a bit to see what works for me
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Aug 3, 2018 23:27
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Holy poo poo guys, if you see algae creeping in, don't wait 2 to 3 days until doing something about it, take care of it right away. That stuff grows exponentially. Here's my pepper plants immediately after cleaning the buckets and their roots being roughed up. Pretty droopy and poopy plants now. Hopefully they'll have a good night's sleep and heal up the next couple days.  Close up of one of the better plants.  Close up of some leaf curling going on.  Couple lessons learned here today, make your reservoirs opaque. I got lucky several years ago because apparently 100F weather outside is too hot for algae, so I never had to deal with that. Another lesson is, 1 big reservoir is much easier to maintain than 8 small ones. Cleaning, wrapping up, and mixing nutes for 8 buckets tethered to air pump took a lot of time. If i see more algae creeping in again, I gotta get rid of these free buckets. One thing I noticed was the 4 buckets on the left had less algae growth because I didn't give time for chlorine to evaporate. The 4 buckets on the right I gave the chlorine in the water a day to evaporate. More algae, but the plants still looked a smidge better. Morning Edit: They perked up again after a good night sleep. Actually they do this every night and day. At night they always get droopy 2 to 3 hours before the timed lighting turns off, then look lively in the morning. 
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Aug 4, 2018 07:05
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Speaking of lighting, I have a fluorescent shop light that takes t5s that I used to use for seed starting years ago. Is there such thing as a "drop-in" bulb replacement for this that would be better suited for hydro?
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Aug 4, 2018 18:13
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GrAviTy84 posted:Speaking of lighting, I have a fluorescent shop light that takes t5s that I used to use for seed starting years ago. Is there such thing as a "drop-in" bulb replacement for this that would be better suited for hydro? https://www.homedepot.com/b/Lighting-Light-Bulbs-Grow-Light-Bulbs/Fluorescent/N-5yc1vZc5sqZ1z0vxin . As far as I know hydro doesn't change what lighting a plant uses. For vegetative growth you want more blue while for flowering you want more red. Duck and Cover fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Aug 4, 2018 |
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Aug 4, 2018 19:18
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GrAviTy84 posted:Speaking of lighting, I have a fluorescent shop light that takes t5s that I used to use for seed starting years ago. Is there such thing as a "drop-in" bulb replacement for this that would be better suited for hydro?
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Aug 5, 2018 04:18
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ijii posted:Not sure what you mean by drop-in, but from what I read LED t5s seemed to be quite a bit favored to their fluorescent counterparts. I guess they last longer and barely generate any heat, which are both good for hydroponics. Amazon has lots of LED t5s that you can easily put in the same fixture as the fluorescent bulb. That's basically what I meant. I wasn't sure if any led solution would work in a fluorescent fixture or not or if they sucked and I should stick with FL or what.
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Aug 5, 2018 04:54
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Thrive Agritech has a T5 direct replacement LED bulb that pulls about 30W, but runs about $70 a bulb which quickly becomes pretty drat expensive if you're trying to to grow anything besides lettuce. As a rule of thumb with LED grow lights, you want about 30W of actual factual power per square foot of growing space for fruiting plants like peppers or tomatoes. Lettuce needs less than half of that before it starts running into tip burn from getting too much light. Don't go by the quoted numbers on most grow lights because they seem to use some mythical equivalent table to compare it with a high pressure lamp in a way that doesn't at all match up with it's real-world effectiveness. Also avoid anything that uses Red/Blue ("blurple") LEDs because the technology has come a long way since those were the way to go and there are benefits for many plant species to receiving more than just two wavelengths of light. Finally, don't get suckered into getting a Feit Electric full spectrum LED grow bar you may see at a big box hardware store. For a low cost of entry, SANSI LED makes a pretty good 15W (actual power) white LED grow light. I'd say that's plenty of light for a single full grown leafy green plant, a couple of smaller plants, or a batch of seedlings. I've never tried their newer 30W and 40W models, but I feel like you wouldn't be able to use those to grow much more than one plant or two due to how you'd have to back the light away to get good coverage and the photon density drops off exponentially as a function of distance. If you're looking for something more professional but still small scale and affordable, Horticulture Lighting Group makes excellent fixtures and LED boards. The HLG 100 model is roughly 12x12", 96W, and has the LEDs spread across the entire surface, which is wonderful for preventing plants from growing directly toward the emitter, which you'd get in a single output grow light like the SANSI LED or any of the single COB units you see everywhere. A single one of those could grow lettuce in probably up to a 2.5ftx2.5ft growing space and runs $150, or you might find one used on eBay for about $100 from someone upgrading (although they are tough to find because they share a name with Meanwell HLG-100 power supplies). They also make a 65W version for $100 that will do just under 2ftx2ft of lettuce or maybe 1.4ftx1.4ft of fruiting stuff. You can also save money by going the DIY route with Bridgelux EB Gen 2 series or Samsung F series strips and a meanwell power supply. That same $150 would get you a 200W system good for 3.5ftx3.5ft of lettuce or 2.5ftx2.5ft of fruiting plants, with probably a few dollars to spare. The rollitup forum Duck and Cover linked has tons of builds to assist in that area. The fixture can be assembled in an evening even if you have no prior experience at all. CapnBry fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Aug 6, 2018 |
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Aug 6, 2018 14:11
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 Hmmm I want more tomatoes, and so have bought nutrients with more phosphorous. We'll see if I get more flowers after I try it on Saturday. Duck and Cover fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Aug 7, 2018 |
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Aug 6, 2018 18:37
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 Huzzah one of my big tomatoes (I think it's probably Big Rainbow) has started to change colors. Duck and Cover fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Aug 7, 2018 |
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Aug 7, 2018 19:21
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Duck and Cover posted:
I'm having a pickle of a time aerating my reservoirs. I've been poking holes in 1/4 tubing with a safety pin, but they keep getting clogged. I'm sick of loving around with my reservoirs every day, and I'm sure my plants' roots are sick of it too. Today I used my awl to poke bigger holes in hopes they don't get clogged. I'm thinking of resigning to the fact I'm going to have to go with airstones. I just changed out my pepper nutes to full strength a couple days ago, and I probably have to redo one because it looks like it's getting pythium built up. I cleaned the roots by spraying with tap water, but I'll probably have to clean the whole bucket. While changing out my lettuce nutes to full strength, I pretty much murdered one of them via root castration, accidentally. It's outer leaves are pretty much dead, but it looks like there's still new growth, so I'll let it go for now. Looks like my buttercrunch seedlings are having their true leafs peak out, so I'm gonna give them a light dose of nutes.
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Aug 8, 2018 02:33
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ijii posted:Grats, hopefully everything will be smooth sailing for these guys while they ripen. I hate tomatoes, but part of me wants to pick them off and eat them like an apple. It's been fairly smooth sailing for the most part even with that fungus that's along parts of the stems of my plants. Although the plants haven't been super productive (the green zebra has given me maybe maybe 7ish fruit I haven't been counting but they are fairly small) I'm hoping my next go at it will be better. I think switching to a more phosphorous rich solution will help. As far as aeration goes you could do it with a water pump and a venturi nozzle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfe9elW5T88 Duck and Cover fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Aug 8, 2018 |
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Aug 8, 2018 02:44
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Meanwhile my little tabletop jarfest is coming along. From the front left clockwise there is sage, lavender, and two san marzano tomatoes. The plant under the dome is a hydrangea I am trying to clone. This little mini-Kratky was a great idea so thanks for that. I did remove the string wicks because they seemed to keep the plugs sopping wet right to the top. Now the plugs are really dry on the top, and I'm looking to see if they dry out to the point it kills the seedling, but seeing as their roots are now in the water I think they'll be ok. The two tomatoes I did with two different diameters on the plughole in the middle. One loosely fit the plug, with a couple mm of space on the side, and the other is tighter so the plug is touching the wall and it flares out a little toward the bottom. I was interested in seeing if the tight one would block root growth but that plant is the larger of the two.  They also grew quite tall before getting their first set of true leaves but have seemed to slow down now. I can boost the light current from 600mA to 900mA but I don't think it is necessary. I might start a second set once these are in the tent with the higher power light to see if they stay shorter. The light is the CREE horticulture reference build with 3x 4000K leds to every 1x HE red. If I were to build the light again I would use all 4000k LEDs I think, but I have no plans to rebuild because I think this does OK.
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Aug 8, 2018 13:44
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Another week has passed and things are moving along. Here's my lettuce:  Good lettuce:  Bad lettuce:  Muh peppers:  I think my pepper plants are going to be short and fat. I wish they were tall and beefy. They're all 6 inches  
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Aug 9, 2018 18:41
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Some of my short peppers plants decided that they are in fact big, and that they should produce peppers at such a young age. As soon as the area expands a little, those buds are going to get snipped. I'm too afraid to pinch them or cut them when they're that packed in.
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Aug 12, 2018 14:55
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Lettuce update. Here they are, can't get a top down view since everything is smooshed into this rack. I'm concerned that my lettuce is in a bolting stage. Am I right that they are the first stages of bolting? The stems are starting to grow more than I expected    I want harvest one or two leaves at a time and give the lettuce a couple days of recovery, are they even ready for that yet? Here's my buttercrunch seedlings:  The setup I'm using, exactly the same the bibb lettuce is using:   One of the seedlings that was in the mason jar which had have half strength nutes. The system has full strength nutes. 
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Aug 16, 2018 04:34
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It's tomato plantin' time! They both look a bit sad because they were sucking up so much kratky jar water that they both sucked the jars dry. One would go through the ~4oz of nutrient in 1.5 days, the other took about 2 days. I finally got off my butt and put them in the hydro tent (the main blocker being the 2 or 3 month old dead pepper plant I chopped down and left for dead). In retrospect I would have removed the plug holder before "planting" them so the roots could go out sideways as well. Looking at the old pepper roots, they grew out sideways right from the very top of the plug, which is where I had the flood system fill to. There's no way to pull the plants out without removing all the growstone though so F that. After the next watering I'll put down a thick layer of growstone as the dry layer to cut down on the majority of gnats which can reproduce on the wet surface. Lights are set for 70W, 18h day, reading 22,000 lux at the plant tops so that's about 319 umol/s or a 20.7 mol/d DLI. The apple juice jugs are just there to take up extra space in the flood tray. Anyone got a better idea for filler that doesn't absorb any nutrient solution and is roughly free? I considered hot gluing empty plastic water bottles together but that hardly seems elegant.
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Aug 19, 2018 17:51
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CapnBry posted:The apple juice jugs are just there to take up extra space in the flood tray. Anyone got a better idea for filler that doesn't absorb any nutrient solution and is roughly free? I considered hot gluing empty plastic water bottles together but that hardly seems elegant. Pepper update: Looking pretty good. Tallest plant is 14 inches, shortest is 7 inches. Lots of branches forking into Y's and they come with flower buds. I'll let the buds stay to see how well it goes.   More peppers soon to come.  
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Aug 20, 2018 15:50
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Sad day today, I terminated my first Bibb lettuce grow. They were bolting and kept producing bitter lettuce. Final look. Some were getting close to growing a nice head.   Biggest problem that I'm aware of is the temperature. Both are air and reservoir are 78F-80F, which is just a bit too warm for lettuce. It's just not cost effective for me to go further keeping it cooler. Lowering the temp closer to 70F would probably cost me an additional $100 month on the AC, and even then 70F is still fairly warm for lettuce. I'll see if there's better heat tolerant greens that I can grow. According to internets, the Bibb and Buttercrunch are more of the heat tolerant greens, but maybe I need to find some seeds from a specific source that's been successfully growing in warmer temps. I'll let the Buttercrunch grow continue just to see how it goes, but not holding out any hope here. My peppers seem to be doing okay, but now I'm wondering if I'll be dealing with blossom end rot. I'll find out hopefully in a month. The flower buds are getting bigger and hopefully they'll be opening up in a week or two.
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Aug 22, 2018 04:58
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ijii posted:Sad day today, I terminated my first Bibb lettuce grow. They were bolting and kept producing bitter lettuce. They make water chillers, or you could go low tech with frozen water bottles. Do you keep your house at 78ish or is it just the grow room? If not you could try ducting in cooler air.
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Aug 22, 2018 08:12
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Duck and Cover posted:They make water chillers, or you could go low tech with frozen water bottles. Do you keep your house at 78ish or is it just the grow room? If not you could try ducting in cooler air. Enough about lettuce, let's talk about peppers. Once again I was naive in my simple setup and made the big mistake of not setting up support for my peppers. I came home yesterday with a plant tipped over quite a bit as if it was trying to puke. I tried to prop it back up only to cause the nearby plants to tip over a bit. gently caress. Today I went to Home Depot and got some small plant supports. The small right four plants were the ones that were really wobbly. The two tall plants in the back left were also leaning too much after me rustling with the plants. So now it looks like my plants went through a small storm.  The small support stakes I should have put in the first place. 
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Aug 23, 2018 22:16
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ijii posted:It's just not worth the cost or effort to buy and run. Looks like chillers are ~200 watts. I keep the house at 78F because that's the sweet spot for me being comfortable and not having to pay a bigger electricity bill for a cooler house. So it looks like I'll have to wait until winter to grow lettuce. I wonder if low pressure aeroponics would make the roots feel cooler? Would just keeping roots cooler be enough to keep the plant from bolting? Can't tell whether or not you've already done it, but a fan pointed at those peppers (light breeze not howling gale) will go a long way toward stiffening them up.
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Aug 26, 2018 01:12
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I am looking to start keeping some ferns, bromeliads, and low light indoor plants some time this winter after I move. However, it's looking like I'll be ending up in a basement apartment. Does a sun lamp provide any usable light for plants, or should I be adding a supplemental grow light? I'm planning on just making a sunshiney Florida corner to keep me going through a northern winter. Also some hanging baskets in the bathroom.
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Aug 26, 2018 17:47
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Suspect Bucket posted:I am looking to start keeping some ferns, bromeliads, and low light indoor plants some time this winter after I move. However, it's looking like I'll be ending up in a basement apartment. Does a sun lamp provide any usable light for plants, or should I be adding a supplemental grow light? I'm planning on just making a sunshiney Florida corner to keep me going through a northern winter. Also some hanging baskets in the bathroom. I'd go with try it and find out. It's easier to get more lighting then it is to return/store lighting you don't need.
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Aug 26, 2018 21:30
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Pepper update. They seem to be doing okay, having to add 1 gallon of nutrients every week.  Few peppers on each plant. Pictured below is 4 peppers on one plant.  Biggest pepper so far on my fushimi plant. About 4 to 5 inches long.  My Ajvarski and Red Marconi pepper seedlings. I was a dummy mixed up the first four seedlings on the right, not sure which is which. But since they're the best seedlings, they'll all be used. 
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Sep 7, 2018 04:52
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I've stopped giving my tomatoes nutrients and going to clear out everything and start again for winter. Well that's the plan we'll see when I actually get going I am pretty lazy and am presently in the process of trying to order a car and not get completely hosed (it's 2018 car dealerships just give me a loving none bullshit MSRP price you loving fucks). To be done. Better support. Set up the ebb and flow probably (I got a special adhesive apparently hdpe is tough to stick to) Move the light forward so I can have better access to the back. Maybe a metal rod and some hooks so that I can hang it from the rod instead of needing to drill if I want to move the lights. Clean stuff I had some sort of fungus problem besides my understanding is you should clean your system after a grow anyway. Maybe buy a reservoir, I do have that blue barrel one but it's kind of big and would probably be a hassle to use. I'm going to do strawberries whenever the bare roots are in stock.
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Sep 7, 2018 05:26
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Pepper update: My plants are growing too tall and too overcrowded, the pics below shows what happens when there's not enough light to reach the whole plant. Leaves below are dying and drooping. Leaves near the light are getting burned.   I did some pruning, but probably not enough.  6 Fushimi peppers on this one plant, hooray.  Seedlings from Ajverski and Red Marconi peppers. I'll probably but them in buckets come Monday my day off.  I'm definitely tempted to prune more aggressively. Kind of wish I did it sooner.
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Sep 15, 2018 06:10
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Based on the recommendations in this thread I'm going to be picking up an HLG100. https://horticulturelightinggroup.com/collections/lamps/products/hlg-100 However, it comes in both 4000K and 3000K color temperature variants.  I'd like to test out a few different setups (leafy greens in Kratky jugs, tomatoes in Dutch buckets, starting seeds next Spring), so would one be considered more "generic" than the other? \/\/\/ Thanks! Went with 4000K Microcline fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Sep 17, 2018 |
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Sep 16, 2018 07:09
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Microcline posted:However, it comes in both 4000K and 3000K color temperature variants. quote:Most flood trays I see uses stuff like hydroton throughout entire tray to avoid your problem there. No exposed nutes and the flood level rises like an inch short of surface. Maybe you can use aluminum foil to cover at the tops of the areas you want covered? Weigh down plastic bottles of the areas you want filled/covered, put anything heavyish inside to keep bottles from floating up?  One is much further advanced than the other, it has moxy. Also there is my lavender. That's right, that's as large as its gotten in about 3 months. The roots in the jar are like 2ft long though, which is crazy. I gotta figure out what this thing likes because it grows slower than my dick, but is just as healthy and green. CapnBry fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Sep 16, 2018 |
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Sep 16, 2018 16:40
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Microcline posted:Based on the recommendations in this thread I'm going to be picking up an HLG100. CapnBry posted:One is much further advanced than the other, it has moxy. Also there is my lavender. That's right, that's as large as its gotten in about 3 months. The roots in the jar are like 2ft long though, which is crazy. I gotta figure out what this thing likes because it grows slower than my dick, but is just as healthy and green. It's time to put my almost month old pepper seedlings in a bigger bucket. This second time around I feel I'm doing things better. I put them in a kratky setup a bit sooner and gave them mature nutes a bit sooner too. Couple seedlings did look like to have a bit of nutrient burn it seems but the next set of leaves looked super healthy. In the third picture, you'll that there are buds growing now. Last time it took about 3 weeks before they opened up when I first spotted them. Also I put in the picture of good looking roots of one of them.     I made some minor quality of life changes. One being is that I drilled about an inch diameter hole to use to feed nutes and to lift and drop an airstone easily to clean since they get clogged pretty quickly. Another I put in a 33 inch tomato trellis because I really hate how my other pepper plants in my other setup are just laying against the wall and my rack. I have two extra seedlings that I'll probably try to harden off and put them outside and see how they do. All I need to do is get the airpump and airstones in and these plants are ready to go for the long run.   My older plants are doing so so. I cut away a lot of soggy wilting leaves on one plant that I was afraid was going to get diseased. Took a picture of a couple plants with several fushimi peppers on it and several shishito peppers on it.   
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Sep 20, 2018 20:10
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 A week later and these plants are going. to. town. I'm raising the lights an inch a day and it probably should me more than that. I've got it at a bit of an angle and the plant in the back is quickly catching up as the foreground plant is spreading out. By the end of this week I'll probably raise the light significantly, turn on all the LED strips, and up the power from the 70W I'm pushing out now to 100W or a bit more (whatever gives me roughly 25,000 lux at the tops of the plants). I didn't expect them to grow so fast, but with the lights down so low I can't fit any of the cages in there. A great thing about strip LEDs is that it isn't going to wreck things if the plant grows almost into the light. With COB lights, the plant wants to grow directly into the COB emitter except once it gets within a few inches it starts to fry. The LES don't even get up to 40C at this current so it's barely worse than being outside here.
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Sep 23, 2018 18:02
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Do the "Wilma systems" count as hydroponics, they are recirculating drip feed. If so am a hydro king and i can definitely recommended them as a good starting point into the hydroponics world.... once you get your head around PH and EC levels that is
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Sep 25, 2018 16:23
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I have a question about running salad hydroponically. I have six little net cups of mixed greens going in one of my DWC setups and it occurred to me this is the first non-fruiting vegetable I'll grow. Do I need to swap out the nutes for clean, PH'd water and flush before I eat the greens? Also, root rot sucks balls. Watch your reservoir temperatures kiddos.
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Oct 2, 2018 03:57
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EBB posted:I have a question about running salad hydroponically. I have six little net cups of mixed greens going in one of my DWC setups and it occurred to me this is the first non-fruiting vegetable I'll grow. Do I need to swap out the nutes for clean, PH'd water and flush before I eat the greens? Google says it's not necessary but it's a good idea. When I did lettuce/herbs and such I harvested as it grew instead of harvesting the whole head. As far as my stuff goes not much to talk about. I bought a flexible tubing brush to properly clean out the brown sludgy stuff it worked although I wish it had more bristles. Hopefully when I do the ebb and flow algae growth will be less, we'll see. That's assuming I overcome my laziness and actually start another grow. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0126416XW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 BIgDevine posted:Do the "Wilma systems" count as hydroponics, they are recirculating drip feed. If so am a hydro king and i can definitely recommended them as a good starting point into the hydroponics world.... once you get your head around PH and EC levels that is Sure does. Duck and Cover fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Oct 2, 2018 |
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Oct 2, 2018 04:42
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Duck and Cover posted:Google says it's not necessary but it's a good idea. When I did lettuce/herbs and such I harvested as it grew instead of harvesting the whole head.
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Oct 2, 2018 13:14
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Interesting, I'll have to look into staggering. Another question- this is my first time with rockwool. Normally I use rapid rooters with hydroton in the cups for bigger plants. The rockwool is slowly turning a healthy green which I assume is algae, is this bad? I know what pythus and brown algae look like (and what they do to roots), is this something I should be concerned about?
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Oct 2, 2018 17:04
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A little bit of algae on top won't hurt, but you got to make sure that algae can't get any where else, especially in the reservoir. It's a good idea to cut down or bury rockwool cube down enough to where you can put a layer of hydroton on top of the cube to help prevent algae build up, but as long as light can't reach any part of the reservoir you should be good. This includes making sure your reservoir container is opaque enough. Also make sure with DWC is that you don't fill it up to where the net cup is sitting in the reservoir. Once the roots reach the reservoir, the drier the net cup and its contents, the better. ijii fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Oct 2, 2018 |
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Oct 2, 2018 20:38
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The salad greens are all micro at the moment but after covering up the algae with hydroton and getting the res temps down this week I'm getting beautiful white root growth:
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Oct 5, 2018 13:45
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