Huge Thank You!

[dropinbiking]

Just made this account to say a huge thank you to whoever gathered and presented all the info on this website. It's been most of my go-to in my adventure learning how to grow weed. I haven't been active on the forums, but the main site has been a wealth of knowledge.

Figured I'd share my little setup with you guys, and feel free to chime in with any suggestions, or questions you might have, I'd like to get active on this forum, seems like a nice community.

I'm running 3 black mambas, and 3 sour kush autos in my 2x4 closet. It's just lined with reflective film and powered by a Vipar Spectra 300w (130~) It's not much but I'm hoping for some sort of yield out of it. I have a second light arriving in a few days which I think will help a lot.

https://streamable.com/vfizr

[Canuck147]

Looks great. You're getting everything out of that light.

[dropinbiking]

Yes I'm certainly stretching it to it's max. I'm sure if I wasn't able to rotate my canopy I'd have a seriously un-even crop. It was a great deal for a used basic light, but in hindsight I should have gotten more light sooner. Or if I were to stick with this light, I would try to grow a smaller canopy.

[BR2K]

Awesome effort - I only have two questions: Where and when is the party???!!!!

[BaccaRacca]

What Canuck said. Looks like you are getting the most out of that setup. Just one suggestion: find a regular light so we can see your plants in their natural green glory. Good job there.

[dropinbiking]

Yeah sorry about the crappy pictures. Here's a few more, hope they are better. Hey Bacca how's you experience with Roleadro as a company? I have one of their LED's on the way, I'm a little suspect,expecting some shoddy quality control.

[BaccaRacca]

I have yet to grow under the Roleadro, but I already know they are tougher than expected. While constructing my grow cabinets I dropped two almost 6 feet to the floor. I thought they'd be dead, but they worked. I think these are better built than the Toplanet. More LEDs, more metal, no switch on the panel, the transformer is separate from the panel, and they are slightly smaller, making them easy to gang together. I have four ganged together in one cabinet that I use for breeding. I'll be using them shortly. I will keep you posted on performance.

As for the Toplanet panels, I've already put them through their paces and they have performed well. I paired two of the Toplanet panels with two 18w 6500K CFLs and was able to grow 4 fairly dense 20"x12" youngsters in 10", 2.6-gallon pots. I had no problems with them running 18/6.

[dropinbiking]

Got my second light, seemed to really help out in there huge. More spread and more penetration now. Had to turn the heat up a bit it's down to -23c tonight so the basement has been chilly. Still holding a 20c canopy temp with the lights off heat and fan on.

[alltatup]

Hey dropin, Welcome to the forum!! Fantastic setup!!!

[SoOrbudgal]

Well done and welcome to the forum.

[Farmall]

As everyone has said....Super Job and ...don't forget my invitation as well !

[Spidermite]

Wow those plants as amazing for the amount of light you have. And that was before you got your second light. Enjoy the fruits of your hard work. It shows in your plants.

[dropinbiking]

Thanks guys, the veg growth wasn't bad under the single 300. I guess I just kept the plants close and even. They are in half gallon pots which I think are really hurting me now that I'm in late flower, regardless of how much light I add.

[Spidermite]

They look really nice for that size pot. I have slowly gone from 3 gallon, to 7 gallon, and now 15 gallon pots. But 3, 5, or 7 gallon is probably all one needs inside.

[Farmall]

You know something...@spidermite and a few others use large pots and I’m using 7 gallon and will be going to 15 as well. My root density is jam packed. When I try to clean the bags and pull a root ball out of the soil...the roots are just like an adobe wall. You cannot push a blunt stick into them. Obviously they are taking advantage of the space and would probably do great in bigger bags...

[dropinbiking]

Here's some back story and some context of the grow and how it progressed. Started with these 3 black mamba seeds I sprouted by sunlight, was practically thrown that 300 watt light so I setup the closet. Stumbled onto some Sour Kush Auto seeds (Didn't know they were autos at the time) And put three in there with them.

Mistake 1 - Too cold of temps overnight Things were getting down to 15-16, not good for small plants, slowed growth.

Mistake 2 - Too small of pots Didn't seem like a problem untill recently, no reason to skimp out on pot size.

Mistake 3 - Using cheap generic synthetic nutrients I was using some single pack all purpose miracle grow stuff which worked great for veg, maybe a little heavy on nitrogen. Wasn't so much a problem except for realizing the three sour kush were autoflowers. They got severely nitrogen toxic, and the soil I'm using has time release nitrogen in it, not a good combo.

Mistake 4 - Mixing photos and autos I'm flowering three autos under 12/12 which isn't ideal, they could use more light, but I'm stuck finishing off the three black mambas.

Mistake 5 - Too late on more lighting Never realized how much more light plants want when they start to flower, I'm sure all these factors combined will hurt yields.

Mistake 6 - Not training the autos I let the autoflowers get tall and lanky with zero training and it really hurt yields and made keeping an even canopy hard, had to elevate other plants to match them.


Improvements for this next germinating round (Got three sour kush in papertowel germing now)

1 - Bigger pots Got some true 1.5 gallon round pots this time. No reason to stay small, the autos should love them

2 - Soil & Nutrients Got a brick of coco to expand, a bag of perlite. I also have Gaia Greens 4-4-4 and 2-8-4 organic dry ammending nutrients. I also have some backstrap molasses and can brew some compost tea if needed. Sticking to an all organic grow seems like the safer bet.

3 - More Light & Warmer Temps Got that second light which I will introduce much sooner this next round, I have also been keeping an eye on temps and using a heater to not let temps fall too low.

4 - Proper Training After realizing how much I screwed myself not training my autos, and how over training my photos slowed progress, I have a feeling some proper low stress training should help yields.


I have a good feeling that all these things factored, I should be able to have a much better next harvest. Any more input or ideas or things I might be missing out on, feel free to let me know.

[Spidermite]

I assume you are using soil. If so I do not think that any one would argue that you should use at least a 3 gallon pot. Canuck147 I believe sometimes has big plants in smaller pots. But I may be wrong.

[SoOrbudgal]

Hey your doing great, we all started not knowing much about how to grow. You can grow autos and photos it's just timing, i'm doing that now. I start the autos 1month prior to vegging seedlings. I veg my photos 2months. That gives you 90days for an auto at 18/6 over and out

[Farmall]

When my runt turned male, I used autos as replacement...thing is, I never knew they were autos. It worked fine

[dropinbiking]

I figure 1.5 gallon would be fine. I mean I want to keep my next round of plants a similar size to these, and the half gallon seems to be able to let them survive at least. I may also have some 2 gallon pots, I'll take a look.

[dropinbiking]

I'll add that I've got a roll of 6mil textured mylar on the way. I hear that stuff is best for lining a grow area. The emergency blanket stuff I'm using now work, but it sucks to work with, probably doesn't reflect that well, and looks pretty ghetto.

[Spidermite]

I saw that you are using mostly coco coir. I've never used it but from what I understand you can use smaller pots. I use soil which is completely different. You seem to have the hang of it, so doubling the pot sizeswill most likely double your plant size.

[dropinbiking]

All these plants are currently in soil. Next round will be coco and perlite.

[dropinbiking]

So I switched up my lighting position, I turned them 90 degrees, I think that will help maximize my lights in this 3x2 area, I'm trying to keep things tight. I've noticed amazing new growth with this new light, and keeping the temps closer to 25c. Woohoo! Included are some bud shots. Feel free to let me know if you think I could go lower with lights, or switch back to the other position. I've got them at about 14" give or take, hard to say because it's not the most even canopy.

[SoOrbudgal]

You got a garden of weedon going on in there, I dig it. That's the sorta stuff I have to do to raise them up. For some reason I never did the yoyo hangers I just like blocks and risers.

[dropinbiking]

It was my bad not training those tall lanky autoflowers. Hindsight is 20-20 right? I've got an idea to use a grated plastic shelf on some 10" legs to set in the closet, and set my pots on that. Will let me put the fan under everything, and heater too if needed. I'm willing to get creative to save a buck. Between the Cheap used Vipar, and the brand new $40 china light, some $5 film, and a few bucks here and there, I've got a pretty poverty spec grow. What are these yoyo hangers you speak of?