LED + Coco Coir Journey

A few notes:

The primary purpose of this journal is to share my experience, and log all data. This is my first grow, with the following primary goals:

1. To grow a personal stash, as efficiently as possible using only LED lighting.
2. Learn and share my experience with GC.

Now I'm sure most starting their first grow would take a far more conventional route. In regards to my lighting choice, please know that I've read many compelling reasons to stay away from it - I know the risks, and thats what makes it interesting!

Now that that's been said, lets get down to details:

Index:
1. The Grow Box and Lighting
2. Preparing the Coco Coir
3. The Lighting Configuration
4. Seedling Nute/Water Prep
5. Day Two: Little Sprouts
6. Day 4: A Quick Snapshot
7. Day 6: A Quick Transplant
8. Day 8: He's Dead, Jim.
9. Day 9: Stay Away from the Light #2!!
10. Day 10: Business as Usual
11. Day 11: A Mutant in the Bunch?
12. Day 12, 13, 14
13. Day 15: Time to Repot?
14. Day 16: All is well in the Purple Garden
15. Day 17: A Well Needed Transplant
16. Day 18
17. Day 19: LST'ing
18. Day 20: Going Well
19. Day 21: Let the Flushing Begin
20. Day 22: The Introduction of a New Light
21. Day 23: The Road to Recovery
22. Day 24: Cal-Mag to Save the Day
23. Day 25
24. Day 26: Everyone's Looking Great!
25. Day 26: Introducing the ALMA!
26. Day 27: 3 More Days till Flower!
27. Day 28: The Final Days of Veg
28. Interlude: Grow Medium Recycling
29. Flower Day 0: Flushed and Ready to Go
30. Flower Day 1: Let the Great Wait Begin
31. Flower Day 2: Extra Bushy = Extra Buds?
32. Flower Day 6/7: No Signs of Sex Yet
33. Flower Day 8: First Male?
34. Flower Day 9: And Then There Were 7
35. Flower Day 10: Patiently Waiting for Buds
36. Flower Day 11: First Confirmed Female!
37. Flower Day 12: The Great Sorting of Sexes
38. Flower Day 13: Random Images
39. Flower Day 15: Slow Down Ladies - Don't Go Too Fast!
40. Flower Day 18: First Bud Shots!
41. Flower Day 19: More Stretching and Signs of Trouble?
42. Flower Day 20: Images Taken in a New Light
43. Flower Day 23: 28" and I think We're Done Stretching
44. Flower Day 24: New Nutes - No New Problems
45. Flower Day 25: Down to 4 Ladies
46. Flower Day 26: Progress as Usual
47. Flower Day 27: A Good Flushing + More Light
48. Flower Day 30: 30 Days from 12/12 (technically 20 days into flower)
49. Flower Day 31: Bud Macro Shots!
27. Flower Day 23 (33 days from 12/12): Pruners Remorse
29. Interlude: Trimming During Flowering - Excellent Contribution by GrapeStreet
30. Flower Day 27 (37 days from 12/12): Random Shots
31. Flower Day 29 (39 days from 12/12): Second Grow Pics
32. Flower Day 33 (44 days from 12/12): Tons of Pics!
33. Super Macro Shots
34. Flower Day 36 (46 Days from 12/12): Just Another Day of Waiting!


The environment:

I decided to grow indoors with as much control as possible. I have a spare utility room connected to my house (access from the back of my house). There's no AC or insulation in there, and it gets pretty steamy in there during the summertime.



I originally designed a custom box for the space, but while at Lowes I found a large cabinet for less than the materials it would've taken to build. Heres what it looks like assembled and in place:

Just tools here people, nothing to see..


I laminated the interior with 2mil mylar:



Since temp and ventilation are important, I decided to draw conditioned air (from inside the house) into this cabinet. The cabinet exhausts into the utility room. I took several measures to ensure the cabinet was as air/light tight as possible by using caulk and weatherstripping at all gaps. Notice how I used weatherstripping on the inside of the cabinet doors:



I ran a single circuit to the cabinet to power the fan and lights. I chose an Air King 50CFM bathroom fan (1.0 Sones) because of its efficiency. When you're inside the utility room, you cant even here it running from inside. I paid $40 off Amazon. (Update 8/28: I've had this thing on "low" for two weeks w/ no issues. Good to know considering I haven't added a carbon filter yet).

This upper compartment also serves as a storage area for growing supplies/materials:



I just finished that tonight, and have (located inside the cabinet) a remote thermometer/hygrometer so I can monitor its performance. At this moment (with it being closed for an hour), the internal temperature is 81 degrees, 51% humidity :: compared to the temp outside right now which is 89 deg, 73% humidity.

Lighting:

As mentioned before, I wanted to experiment with LED lighting by introducing multiple lights from various sources. I will be using a total of 5 lighting units:

(Update 9/9/10: The below light config has changed a bit throughout flowering. The 140w was introduced approx 20 days into veg)

2 24w Sunlight Systems GrowPanel45s
2 14w Quad Band Panels
1 140w 7 Band Unit w/ 1w and 3w CREE LED (Red, Red, Blue, White, White, UV, IR)

I'll start the next entry tomorrow once I get the seedlings in some coco. Be sure to comment/subscript - its gonna get interesting!

Edited by MrSmoke, 29 October 2010 - 04:26 PM.
Updated Index

Seedling Stage: Day 0

Today I received my coco coir + soil amendments. The coco came unmarked, compressed, 10 bricks.



I broke up 1 brick in a 1 gallon bowl. And added pure water (11PPM).



Once it constituted, it pretty much filled the bowl, so each brick apparently yields 1 gallon of medium (easy for me!). I drained a bit of water and tested it with a TDS meter. It read approx 110 PPM (not bad), but I wanted it cleaner.

I put it in a 5 gallon bucket and flooded it with water. Once filled, I covered the top with a screen and flipped it over to drain. I did this a total of 3 times which brought the PPM down to 22PPM (pretty good!)

Next, I wanted to add some amendments. Heres a bit of what I'm using:



I added the following to the drained, yet moist coco bucket:

1 Gal Perlite
1 TBS Dolomite Lime
2 TBS used/dried coffee grounds

Mixed everything well, and this is what I got:



Next, I filled 8 organic dot pots (2 inch):



I added 8 germinated seeds (all had broken through), heres a pic of those guys:



Lastly, I placed them in the cabinet under 1 grow light (temporary until I get all my lights in).

Edited by MrSmoke, 10 August 2010 - 07:19 PM.

Nice start. Great job on the photos. Where will the lights be and how far will the girls be from them?

good stuff man ill be watching this grow for sure good luck

Nice start. Great job on the photos. Where will the lights be and how far will the girls be from them?

Thanks for the positive feedback!

As soon as I get all of my lights in (only have two panels right now), I will set them up in an array like this:



I will place them as close as possible while ensuring that the most intense lighting focuses on each plant.

I also need to come up with some sort of rig to attach all the lights which allows me to lower/raise them all in one shot. I'm thinking of either building an adjustable frame with PVC, wire or wood - any ideas?

Finally, I don't know if they are girls yet! I don't even know the strain. I used 8 bag seeds from some pretty good mids. They look promising, its compressed bud, but it not the dirtiest bag I've ever gotten

Heres a bud pic of my source:

http://forum.grasscity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=444191&d=1281466856

Thanks for the positive feedback!

As soon as I get all of my lights in (only have two panels right now), I will set them up in an array like this:



I will place them as close as possible while ensuring that the most intense lighting focuses on each plant.

I also need to come up with some sort of rig to attach all the lights which allows me to lower/raise them all in one shot. I'm thinking of either building an adjustable frame with PVC, wire or wood - any ideas?

Finally, I don't know if they are girls yet! I don't even know the strain. I used 8 bag seeds from some pretty good mids. They look promising, its compressed bud, but it not the dirtiest bag I've ever gotten

Heres a bud pic of my source:

http://forum.grasscity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=444191&d=1281466856

Think about maybe raising the plants on a shelf up to the lights. I'm building a small box that will have a shelf for the plants to sit on.

Think about maybe raising the plants on a shelf up to the lights. I'm building a small box that will have a shelf for the plants to sit on.

Thats definitely an option too (and may make draining a little easier to manage).

Just a quick update:

I went ahead and prepared my water and nutes.

I filled 2 cleaned and sanitized (a few drops of bleach/water) plastic gallon jugs (I used Ice Tea containers - milk jugs always have that smell....).

I let the water sit for 48 hours in a dark cabinet with the lid off (no real reason - theres no chlorine in our water). It reads approx 7PH, 11 PPM (we have REALLY good water here...thank god)

I added 1/4 TSP of SuperThrive to both.

For the nutes, I'm using Fox Farms liquid (big bloom, grow big, tigerbloom). Since there are minimal nutes in the soiless mix, I added the following to my "feed" gallon:

1 Tablespoon of Big Bloom (more than recommended - but this stuff is mild)
1 Teaspoon of Grow Big

PH for feed was 6.5
TD was 310PPM

I'll probably mist the pots w/ my water solution tomorrow to keep them damp and start feeding gently a week after sprouting.

subbing +rep for taking the LED risk

Seedling Day 1

Much to my surprise, these guys/gals aren't wasting any time and have already begun to spout out of the medium. 3 of the 8 have already broken through the surface.

I have not been feeding the pots, and only applying a very minimal amount of water to the dot pots (not directly over the seedling). I apply a few drops daily to the edges of the dot pots to make sure they stay damp.

Edited by MrSmoke, 13 August 2010 - 09:11 PM.

Week 1, Day 2

Last night I properly hung my two panels. I should receive two 14w quad band panels tomorrow (friday), and my 90w UFO sometime next week (coming from China..)

Here's a shot of the current layout (temporary).



Half of the seedlings are sprouting their cotyledon and emerging true leaves as shown below:




Still no nutes, watering 1cup water per day - again, only drops around the perimeter of the dot pots. 1/2 cup in the morning, 1/2 cup in the evening.

hey MrSmoke - saw you on the LED group and thought I would stop by and check your thread. Seems like you are just getting started. All seems to be going in the right direction but a couple of queries... Why are you adding superthrive already? You shouldn't really add that until the plants are quite a bit bigger. Seedlings are v delicate and I wouldn't be giving my plants superthrive until at least 4 weeks in personally. Also /41 teaspoon per gallon? That sounds like quite a lot. I put like 1 or 2 drops per jug of water and could have sworn it is 1 drop per gallon (would have to go and re-read the label to confirm). One top tip with LED is to consider adding in some cheap CFLs when flowering. Good luck with the grow! Never grown in Coco before but as with every grow, I am sure you will learn a lot!! Fingers crossed you don't have to deal with any pests/problems. Cheers!

Edited by flippa, 12 August 2010 - 11:59 PM.

Following this with much interest. I am setting up a cfl led grow and if this works out well i will convert to a full led system. Best of luck

hey MrSmoke - saw you on the LED group and thought I would stop by and check your thread. Seems like you are just getting started. All seems to be going in the right direction but a couple of queries... Why are you adding superthrive already? You shouldn't really add that until the plants are quite a bit bigger. Seedlings are v delicate and I wouldn't be giving my plants superthrive until at least 4 weeks in personally. Also /41 teaspoon per gallon? That sounds like quite a lot. I put like 1 or 2 drops per jug of water and could have sworn it is 1 drop per gallon (would have to go and re-read the label to confirm). One top tip with LED is to consider adding in some cheap CFLs when flowering. Good luck with the grow! Never grown in Coco before but as with every grow, I am sure you will learn a lot!! Fingers crossed you don't have to deal with any pests/problems. Cheers!

Hi Flippa, thanks for stopping by!

Re: Superthrive - I chose to use it for a few reasons, primarily because my water quality affords it. With the 1/4 tsp per gallon, my water only contains 13PPM. Superthrive is a hormone/vitamin supplement and does not appear to have any N-P-K. I've also read that Superthrive is excellent for reducing stress, strengthening roots, and starting seedlings.

Re: CFL's - I will not be adding CLFs to this grow as it defeats the purpose of the experiment. The general consensus is that LED works well for veg, sucks for flower. Everything I read suggests that this is due to the red LED spectrum's poor light penetration/intensity. I am attempting to offset this imbalance by introducing a significant increase in varying bands of red (different + increased LEDs in the red spectrum). I also believe LST will benefit all LED grows due to the light penetration issue (which I will be doing as well). Finally, if during flowering I see light/airy buds I will most likely opt for additional light in the far red spectrum (quite possibly a little in the UV/IR spectrum).

I think the key to LED lighting is diversity. Most people seem to be using the same brand of lighting which supplies only red/blue which provides very little diversity as far as light spectrums go.

Following this with much interest. I am setting up a cfl led grow and if this works out well i will convert to a full led system. Best of luck

Thanks STOOPIDKID, I'm hoping for the best. I don't anticipate this being a particularly long grow and will switch to 12/12 as soon as possible. As mentioned above, the flowering stage seems to be the moment of truth with LEDs, so the sooner the better.

Hi MrSmoke,

Fair enough re superthrive. The bottom line is do what works for ya! It ain't my grow . Was just telling you what I do myself and what I've heard quite a few other people say. I suppose I just don't like to mess with seedlings because they are v v delicate.

Re staying LED purist - there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. You will get bud and good bud at that... just not neccessarily in the quantity that might match CFL + LED combos. What I have learnt from LED is that they rock for veg and work for flower. The most important thing is wattage and quality of LED lights themselves, which vary MASSIVELY in performance). I may even go pure LED this grow myself since the extra heat CFLs generate is their downfall (plus extra watts required). Growing with LEDs is just a pure delight for the mostpart. 1 decent LED light is enough to grow with. That is for sure. I have a 90w LED light but I cannot expect that to match a 250+w light. So one of the main reasons I have veered towards CFLs is to increase the wattage midflowering, decrease the humidity of my grow area (heat cuts down humidity), and to help fill out the spectrum as CFLs have the perfect spectrum for growing but lack penetration and are not anywhere near as efficient as HPS watt for watt. All that said... I only added my current LED light for one run of growing last grow after my Procyon broke (for the second time!!). I was so impressed with what my CFL + LED combo produced, I am v curious to see how much it will grow without CFL. If the weather where I live stays mild as it is lately... I'll go without CFL... if it gets v cold outside I will add in CFL. That's my current mindset. Good luck with your experiments! Led growing is v experimental but I love it .

Hi Flippa,

I'm with you 100% on the delicacy of the seedlings. I'm being *very* gentle with the little guys/gals (in fact I'm worried about underwatering them at this point). I'm aiming to keep the dot pots moist as I figure if they are moist, the soil should have enough water to support the seedlings.

I've also PH'd my water to precisely 5.8 and have been adding the water at rather consistent increments (1/2c every 12 hours - distributed to all 8 plants). This is all I will be doing until I get my 3rd set of leaves.

I've got little to compare their progress with at this point aside from viewing other grow journals, but it sure feels like my seedlings are doing well beings that its only been 3 days in the coco and all have broke ground and most are sprouting true leaves.

By the way, I'm hoping using Coco+LED provides many benefits. Coco is a very airy soiless mix and is apparently a very good nute/ph buffer.

Also, I really like the idea of using an all LED grow. I certainly don't expect to compete with an HID grow, but then again, if I get 1/3 yield using 1/3 power (without all the heat and replacement bulbs), I consider it a win for the first experiment.

I have a good feeling that these plants will do well during veg, but during flowering I may have to supplement the LED spectrum. I've already blew my budget for this setup, so am considering building out some supplemental LED arrays in order to bolster my light within the IR and UV spectrums. Not much of course, but just *some* light I believe will help (according to a lot of what im reading).

Well then dude... I am subscribed to see you findings for flowering. Low wattage LED does great for veg and I would bet money on that as a fact. Definitely will want a boost with flowering (Be it with LEDs or whatever). Watt for watt grows of LED vs HPS have produced some pretty similiar results so always worth bearing that in mind. Manufacturers claims that X 90-120w light is equivalent to a 400w+ light etc... is pure trash. I say that quite confidently having owned two top of the line LED lights. Look forward to seeing more of your stuff. Good luck! My girls are on their way right now as well... the oldest are day2. I do love growing. So goddamn addictive... however this time... I know the strain... I know my lights.. it's gonna be a doddle so long as some unforeseen circumstance doesn't pop up (i.e. pests or visitors). Kinda glad I'm not going to have the brain strain that you will have with learning the ropes of your system, substrate etc. I've heard bits and pieces about Coco btw. Sounds interesting but I once tried venturing into hydroponics (which coco I believe is more similar to?) and got badly burned. Good old soil I find v easy and it's organic (as is coco obv but I don't believe coco is packed with nutes?). Plus.. with soil and LED... i only have to water once roughly every 7 days which rocks! That and the fact my soil has 3 weeks of nutes packed into it... and since my grow is only 2monthes + 3 weeksmax... and i repot once (Adding another 3 weeks of nutes)... that leaves me with only 3 weeks to bother with feeding nutes manually (feeding only nutes 1x per week should my plants get more thirsty in later stages)... and 2 weeks of pure water before harvest to flush the nasty nutes out my plants. My system is pretty much idiot proof now. Taken years to get there but that's the way I like it! You'll figure yours out too but boy do I reckon you'll be a student of the internet . I have spent hours and hours of checking grow journals and god know what other stuff!! Most enjoyable!

Edited by flippa, 14 August 2010 - 12:09 AM.

Week 1: Day 3

Added two more lights tonight, still feeding the 1/2 cup of water twice a day.

Looking great so far

Wow pretty cool man. Very clean set-up, can i ask why the bag seed? Seems like you went all in for the grow why not get a decent fem. strain that grows uniform? Might help with your findings? Im just asking cause im curious. I think your set-up is great cant wait to see it produce! I think its one of the better LED set-ups ive come across on the net. Cheers