Did I do a boo boo?

[sydsix]

I bought two Blackstar 240W UV LEDs for a 4x2x5 tent and I might be having some regrets. I'm looking for some encouraging words...if they exist?

Basically, after posting a few questions about my design, I got a thread full of very knowledgeable farmers telling me I went wrong with LED and I should go HPS. I know this is a huge debate, so I'm not looking to start a war. I went the LED path with full knowledge that my yields will not be a big/good as HPS, but for me and my med needs the pros outweighed the cons. Did I make a boo boo? I mean, I should be able to grow 4-6 plants from seed to flower with these two LEDs...right?

I'm a grow noob, so this will be my first time out of the gate so to speak. So maybe I should have started a little more "tried and true" methods, but alas, here I am. Looking for some moral support from my fellow LED kin.

 

[dankworth]

Looking for some moral support from my fellow LED kin.

Sorry, fresh out. You will chase your tail with LEDs. Flowering with them will likely be problematic.
Looking at the flowering plants of others under HID lighting on this site will depress you.
Those things will remain useful as veg lights probably.

But it really is in your best interest to flower with hps and/or mh.

 

[sydsix]

Off to go punch myself....

...ok, I'm back. What about doing a hybrid of one 240W UV LED and one 400w HPS in my 4x2x5? Overkill or lose the LED and go 600w HPS? I wouldn't feel so bad if I could one LED panel to veg in another tent, and one to flower along with an HPS. I'm looking to dull my buyers remorse ;(

 

[sydsix]

Or...

...What about using the two LEDs for veg in the current tent, and getting another tent (either 4x2x5 or 4x4x7) with a 600W HPS. I got the UV (flowering) version of the lights, not the HO (veg) version. Do you think this matters much?

 

[squiggly]

The best way to find out is to try. I think you should be careful that you're covering the right square footage with those lights (often the numbers are misreported by manufacturers--look to forums to find out what good recommendations are). If you stay within that limitation, you should do fine.

Yes, you won't get as big of plants--but there is some evidence your plants will be stickier/more potent. If its for medical use the trade off could be worth it. I'd say give it a shot--most of the LED naysayers have never used them.

If you really run into problems flowering, supplement with some fluoros and you should work out okay.

 

[dankworth]

If you can, I would get a 5x5 tent with a 1k(dimmable if possible)
That way, you could dial it down to 600 watts, and partition off part of the tent so that your watts/ft2 would be sufficient for good nugs.
I like 50-70 watts/ft2 for lush growth, and bigger frostier nugs.

The leds could be used to supplement HID light for flowering, add some uv and extra light and whatnot. But I have no experience with leds. 240 watts is still 240 watts of heat, so that is still a concern.

I for example would run 1k by itself before dimming it to 750 watts and adding the 240 watts of led.

If you get a 4x4 tent now you may end up wishing you had purchased a 5x5 tent.

Shop around a lot for tents. There appear to be huge differences in tent per dollar.
I have never used a tent, but I spent hours looking at them online.

Awesome that you are considering HID lighting for flower. You will be happy about it later. Keep the questions coming.

 

[deep buddy]

i will agree w/ dank you should get an HID for flowering it will make you alot happier in the end trust us. if you do and go w/ coco as i suggested in your other thread you will be stoked as long as you KISS and get good genetics. you wont regret it. and your leds arent trash they WILL add alot of spectrum.

 

[sydsix]

If you really run into problems flowering, supplement with some fluoros and you should work out okay.

Any suggestions on the flouros? You mean like T5's? If I tried this sort of setup it would seem that smaller bulbs would be needed since they would need to hang among the LEDs.

BTW, I plan to keep/share a grow journal with all you kind folks...worst case scenario so others can learn from my mistakes?! :mad0229:

 

[dankworth]

i will agree w/ dank you should get an HID for flowering it will make you alot happier in the end trust us. if you do and go w/ coco as i suggested in your other thread you will be stoked as long as you KISS and get good genetics. you wont regret it. and your leds arent trash they WILL add alot of spectrum.

Word, coco or coco amended with hydroton or perlite seems to display the best combination of performance and reliability for indoor container farming. There are a couple of particular rules to coco, but nothing you can't handle.
LEDhead has a beautiful 1-plant scrog right now that you should check out for a successful example.

 

[sydsix]

i will agree w/ dank you should get an HID for flowering it will make you alot happier in the end trust us. if you do and go w/ coco as i suggested in your other thread you will be stoked as long as you KISS and get good genetics. you wont regret it. and your leds arent trash they WILL add alot of spectrum.

Yeah, I think I'm convinced. I was just trying to avoid spending more money :sign0055: Oh well, I guess that is what I get for being such an impulse buyer. Not the first time I've burned myself. I suppose I will use the LEDs to veg.

 

[619ster]

I flower with LEDs. I'm more than happy with my results. I use a decent unit though. And from what I've read, you have a decent brand. Those 240's are only pulling 135-140 watts though. So I'd suggest adding hps myself as well. I have a tent with 600w of actual draw in LEDs and my plants do BETTER than what I have in another tent with hps(400w) and cfl's(240w). So it depends on alot more than hps vs. led. But true, the higher wattage LEDs can't compete with a 1000w hps, I can agree with that to an extent. But I'm willing to say that 4x 250w panels of quality engineered LEDs would certainly outperform a 1000w hps easily!!! So IMO, unless you upgrade your tent, you'll do well with what you have.

Now go ahead y'all! Let me have it, lol!!

 

[Dunge]

I need to step in here and dispute a few of my esteemed fellow forum members.

Use the lights exclusively and find out what you get.

Don't pollute the experiment with HID, floro, induction, candles, flint strikers etc.

I think you stand a good chance of pulling off a good grow.

 

[619ster]

Yeah that!!^^^^

 

[squiggly]

I agree with the above. However because this is for a medical need--perhaps it's not the best time for a test (if things start to go wrong).

I think we're getting a bit off topic with soil mixes and whatnot. There are plenty of journals showing that LEDs are capable of taking a plant full term with different results--but only better/worse based on your outlook. Doesn't really serve to help someone by making claims you're not backing up with any evidence.

The original post states the loss to yield had been considered, accepted, and deemed worth the compromise. So commenting on that doesn't really address the question.

For what its worth I've heard those are quality brand LEDs--wouldn't have necessarily been my choice, but from what I see they shouldn't be all that bad.

I think the real magic of LED is going to come later from A.) better diodes and B.) tweaking of the ratio of wavelengths to each other. For now it's an answered question. LEDs can grow pot, they seem to make more resinous pot--but less of it. That much we know.

Saying much beyond that is a guess--there simply hasn't been enough real scientific research done on growing cannabis with LED to show that it is better OR worse than HPS/HID.

Edit:

Unless you are selling it and concerned only with yield by weight. If other factors are important to you then its impossible to quantify the benefit/disadvantage by simply reading grow journals--plants are verrrrrrrrrry complex, you can't just read 4 pages on a forum and give a technology an up or down vote. It takes thousands of people years to fully test the effects of something like this.

This likely represents the biggest fundamental difference in the way artificial light has been delivered to plants during the history of scientific inquiry into their biochemistry/biology.

 

[dankworth]

I have not seen convincing evidence of anyone pulling 1 gram/watt with LEDs.
Except maybe Tobor or Theherbalizor, but they don't count, because those two are freaks of nature.

If LEDs were in fact as efficient as the proponents claim, we would have seen larger commercial setups that used them.

Been looking for any LEDs that actually conferred an advantage in flowering for the last 5 years.

There is a reason that greenpinelane petered out years ago.

I wish I could feel enthusiastic enough about anything to use more exclamation points.

Edit-Production, and therefore supply, may not be the main goal at present.
But if you have to clean house, or shut down, or everything shits the bed somehow, you may run out of supply.
Then you will be buying shit off the street that came from a plant that nobody loved.
Do not end up in this position.
And if you end up with too much weed from flowering with HID lamps...

That's a joke. There is no such thing as too much weed. You will figure out what to do with it.

Better to have it and not need it.

 

[jagle]

i havent had a run with them but a friend did use them.

110watts he was using.
the veg results on them were amazing, very tight nodes, fast growth just amazing. but when it came to flower, they preformed more like cfls. airy buds. just unmatchable to hps.

now you could use the led for vegging and invest on a 250 or 400 if you can afford it for flowering, tho i wouldnt wanna flower 6 plants off a 250. 4 max, and topped and trained to promote bushy side growth because of the lack of light intensity at lower levels from a 250.

bottom line youll produce weed.with 3-4 plants grown correctly the led might not do too bad, but for the money you could of gotten a hps and cfl for veg and had bigger harvests

 

[squiggly]

I have not seen convincing evidence of anyone pulling 1 gram/watt with LEDs.
Except maybe Tobor or Theherbalizor, but they don't count, because those two are freaks of nature.

Just because everyone else isn't doing it right--doesn't make these guys freaks. You can't discount an experiment's results with one that's been set up improperly. This way of thinking just doesn't hold water.

If LEDs were in fact as efficient as the proponents claim, we would have seen larger commercial setups that used them.

This is not how markets work, it's a vast oversimplification. Things like this happen gradually over a looooooong period. Changes only usually kick into full swing once a new method has been "dialed in" and it on mass scale use by someone else. It can take a lengthy amount of time for "someone else" to come along--especially when we're talking agriculture. <---If I could make this blink I would.

As for looking for LEDs for five years and all the rest of what you said--yes there are a ton of bad products out there. However, I'd argue for every bad product there are 1,000 people who couldn't make spit with a good one complaining about it.

You state at the beginning of your post that "no one has gotten it right except _______"

There is no "except" in this type of stuff, especially not if those people's results are repeated over time. That's essentially saying--the results showed one thing, except I didn't like that and so I disregarded it.

 

[dankworth]

Tobor and theherbalizor are likely in the top 1% of ability for growers. The rest of us are not.

It is therefore unlikely that any of us will be matching their results with the same equipment they used any time soon.

That is why I advocate usage of HID lighting in flower.
Theory is good, but results are better.

Performance per dollar of infrastructure is also an important factor to many.

 

[convex]

I too have limited expectations of LED, but ...

Save your doh for now ...

Your equipment and tent are well suited for a scrog.

Depending on your needs you might find you pull an ample amount to get you from harvest to harvest.

I say find a scrog worthy strain and give it a run, you can always add HPS later if need be.

Cheers

 

[leadsled]

I need to step in here and dispute a few of my esteemed fellow forum members.

Use the lights exclusively and find out what you get.

Don't pollute the experiment with HID, floro, induction, candles, flint strikers etc.

I think you stand a good chance of pulling off a good grow.

At least your esteemed fellow forum member know what they are talking about, unlike yourself. your advice is shit a.k.a. dung, but I guess that suits you well.

Don't fuck around, get an hid. You wont regret it.