2x4x5 with 2 Kind LED K3 L300

[SuperUser]

Hi everyone,

Just starting out and I was wondering if I should get more than the lights mentioned? I know Kind LEDs are supposed to be pretty powerful but is there a point, where more lights, starts to
deminish returns?

Should I veg with both lights or is 1 fine?

ill be growing in soil and the two strains are Jet Fuel and White Russian.

Thanks for your advice in advance!

[Chemichael]

How many plants? Size pots? Depends on coverage As far as lights for veg. I use a mix of t5 and Led

[SuperUser]

I only have two plants and plan to scrog with all the training methods that come along with that! As far as size goes I think somewhere along 5-7 gallons per plant.

[Iammygod]

if you know your panel emits correct spectrum(i think it dose) then you need 16-18 true watt of led for squad feet for veg and 32-36(at least) watt for flowering. If your want to cover 8sf for veg so you need 126 watt led panel. if you thought you may need both for veg so you should have bought at least one more for flowering to have 3 penel. but fortunately you you currently have enough light and dont need more.

Your panel is much stronger than you think for your coverage area in veg stage. Im going to suggest you to hang only 1 of your panel 1.2-1.3 times more height than its recommended for veg. use strong fan to bring enough fresh air into your tent as i think even 1 of your panels is much stronger than what is needed for 2×4 veg tent.

the one you have hung for veg is also strong enough for flowering without CO2 supplementing. you can hang both in flowering Without CO2 supplementing but u have to hang them 1.3 time more height than it's recommended for floweing.

[SuperUser]

Thanks for the advice and the simple way to calculate the amount of light needed! I'll have a total of 420W being pulled from the outlet once I have both going so I should be well over the minimum required!

I will probably do the CO2 box. When should I get that in there? Sooner the better or only during the flowering stage?

So when you say 1.3 times more, do you mean if it is recommended 18 inches I add 30%!more height to get max efficiency?

Thanks for the help!

[Iammygod]

You should run CO2 in veg and 1st half of flowering.
If you ask me i will tell youn that you not even have minimum light requirement but also your amount of light is in the middle of good to high with 420 watt LED in 8sf.

As you reach to the end of flowering you need lower temperature preventing terpenoid (if i wrote it correctly) from evaporating. Because of that you should lower light intensity to lower Leaf Surface Temperature and with a lower intensity you don't need CO2 supplementing.

Yeah. 1.3 time means 1 plus 0.3 time and it means 30 percent more.

Remember: up to a point, the more the CO2 level, the more the light you need. The higher the amount of light, The more complicated the grow(you should monitor RH and Temperature heavily and this need more information and knowledge)

[MoreNurgzPlz]

I use the KIND K5 750, I have 4x plants in an Oxypot DWC hydro reservoir. The tent is a Secret Jardin Orca 120 with a grow space of 120cmx120cmx200cm. I also have a Hailea water chiller which isn't necessary but does keep my root in good condition and I don't need to use Botanicare Hydroguard. The nutrients are all monitored using a Bluelab Guardian monitor and I have had no issues with it at all.

The light ran for almost a year and then around week 3-4 of my latest grow I went into the tent and found the light dead. I contacted KIND who passed me onto a local reseller who repaired the light in under two weeks without too much hassle and at only the cost of sending the device out for warranty repair. Apparently the PSU and VFD had blown out and needed replacing. It's worth mentioning that all my equipment is driven by surge protected extension cords that are suspended in the tent off the ground.

It's all back in working condition now and I'm so far still very happy with the light, I haven't really made use of the ability to schedule a ramp up or ramp down light schedule, nor have I tried fine tuning the light spectrum which is all possible with the K5's.

The K5 750 is expensive but I'm on my third grow with it and I'll break even on the costs with this harvest (1.3 year ROI) so I'm not unhappy with the money I have spent. The setup produces more than I need personally but I've used the excess to play with making edibles, canna caps, bubble hash, dry sifting, rosin, QWISO and not had to worry about the experimental failures (there will always be failures, that's how we learn).

OK enough about me and my setup, lets talk about yours.

2x K3 L300's are about the same cost as 1x K5 750.

2x K3 vs 1x K5:

Pro's

• 2x lights so if one dies you can limp on with the other (when my 750 died I had to use some T5's I had as spares to limp on through)
• The KIND's do have light drop off at the edges so having 2x K3's would allow you to space your plants out a little more
• Having 2x K3's means if you do end up with an uneven canopy you can keep one light high and another low

Con's

• The K3's do not have any 5watt bulbs which means less penetration to the lower sections of the plants, this can be counteracted with good plant training such as lollipopping (see idea 7 on No-Technique-Plant-Training) .
• The K3's do not have a built in timer, this is no big deal but you will need 2x power timers to run 2x K3's (I guess you could use an extension off of one timer)
• You miss out on the K5's additional features such as the customisable spectrum (which I've never used but do plan to) and the multi stage timmer (again I haven't used yet)

For me the 5watt diodes was what swung the vote in favor of the K5, I now wish I had spent the little extra and gone with the K5 1000 only as I want to play with CO2 at some point and I don't think the 750 kicks out enough PAR to make it worth it for me. I'm not worried about uneven canopy as I train the plants using manifolding and LST and as far as the light failing, well it's happened once and I'm OK with that. If it happens again then I may have to reconsider my position.

[SuperUser]

Thanks for the help!

Love the write up on the difference between the two lights. You have an awesome set up there!

What did you need to do to get the warranty? Did they ask you for proof of purchase or a receipt? That's one of my concerns, I wonder how they go about that.

Yield wise - how did you do achieving the .5-1gram/watt with the 750?

Also as far as CO2 and PAR, how can you deterime if you can utilize CO2? I wanted to get a CO2 box to put in my tent.

Thanks again!

[MoreNurgzPlz]

Hi ya fella,

Each light has a serial number on it, I told them which reseller I bought the unit from, when I bought it and gave them the serial number. They only care about if it's still in the warranty period.

It turned out the reseller (my local hydro shop) I got the light from wasn't one of their approved suppliers but that didn't matter. I kept the original packaging so I was able to package it up and wrap it in brown packing paper. I used DHL to ship it off to KIND's prefered supplier (£30 shipping) who took care of the warranty process. The prefered reseller was a little terse, sending me emails telling me they were doing me a favour as I didn't buy it through them directly but they did fix the device and I was confident KIND would have backed my warranty claim either way.

For my first grow under the K5 I went with feminized 1x AK48 and 1x Wonder Woman using NugBuckets manifolding technique. Both did great and I pulled in 10 wide mouthed Ball mason jars (5 of each) filled 4/5ths. I had trim as well but I ruined it trying a mixture of dry ice extraction and rick simpson oil, I'm cool with that as I learnt a great deal from the process.

For my second grow under the K5's I went with feminized 2x Wonder Woman, again about 9.5 jars. This time I did a QWISO on the trim and got a splodge of yellow greenish goo that eventually evaporated into some nice dabbable substance that sent me to alpha centauri, I nearly didn't make it back.

Both grows took about 1 week to germ, 3-4 weeks to veg and about 8-9 weeks to flower. There was also the dry and cure time as well, I did have a quick go a water curing which I will use again for edibles in the future.

Sorry I don't have exact gram amounts to offer you as I dropped one of the jars on my scales (and my foot!) right at the beginning and haven't bothered to replace them yet, the scales that is, I kept the original foot.

Wide mouth ball mason jar: https://www.amazon.com/Ball%C2%AE-Qu.../dp/B00G9DNO28

As far as CO2 goes, I'd like to try it but only for fun, I don't think a grow this size would fully benefit from it, I don't think (my opinion only) the K5 750 kicks out enough PAR. I base my assumptions on GWE Article http://www.growweedeasy.com/co2 which states a 1000watt HID for a 4x4 grow area. Although the light is supposed to be the equivalent of a 1000watt HID I'd say KIND's marketing department may use some creative thinking in this area. Don't get me wrong it's a great light which has yielded large tight buds but I'm not yet convinced it's worth spending the extra £300- £400 on a CO2 system, go through the hassle of sealing my tent and retire the carbon scrubbers I have only to achieve an extra jar. Also due to health reasons I'm just not ready to mix up the platform just yet, I might have been more willing to try it if I had the K5 1000, it just feels like I'd need a little more power to make use of the CO2.

I'm using Sensi Grow and Bloom nutes as that's what my local shop had at the time, I also use silicone rather than Ph UP and as I use RO water I also use CalMag.

I'm now growing GrandDaddy Purp (not feminised, I couldn't find any) and I've had no end of troubles, first the light died just after the first topping. Then I was hospitalised for 2 weeks after I switched to the flower phase so ended up with lanky ladies and to top it all off one of the plants pretended to be female (I missed the signs due to being ill) and I think it's spunked my females.

Rules for an easy grow:

Keep it simple, don't over engineer
Use feminised seeds from a good strain
Use half the nutrients that are stated on the bottles
Train your plants using LST or more advanced techniques, I'm a big fan of manifolding
Don't get ill half way through your grow

[Karlee]

Hi Super Welcome!!

Do you know what dirt yet? and food? Keep a calendar near the tent and write it down.

This grow will be painfully slow, learn to keep everything green on it till harvest. Ph and nutrients being the number one brown spot maker.

You have the light to grow good bud! The more plants this grow the more you'll get frustrated trying to make everyone happy (it's hard at first)

Come here and ask before doing something you've never done it will save you time.

[SuperUser]

Thank you for the kind greeting Karlee, super excited to start learning!

I went with Fox Farms Ocean Forest as my soil. I also picked up the dirty dozen start pack that comes with practically everything I need. I'll probably get some other things along the way.

I got the PH and TDS pens. I live in Oregon and my water comes out the tap at around 6.8 with ppm of 14-20.

I will definitely come back to ask questions! Thanks for the help!

[Karlee]

Great choices, now if I can get you in hydro I'd help better. We have great dirt growers here and you'll have fun learning with everyone here!

[Royal Nugs]

15 ppm at the tap... wow.

[Canuck147]

Don't overwater and don't over nutrient them.