A very sad tale

So in everybodys opinion. Is the zeus 465 pro c simply too bright? Its right up in the roof of the tent at the lowest possible intensity, plants of about 2-2.5 foot high totally failing to flower properly. Shitty little buds, 8 weeks to grow 1 week to smoke. Is it intensity or is there something wrong with LEDs? I dont beleive its the medium, or heat, or Ph from feed. Is there any other situation that would cause plants to have extreme sensitivty to light? Or is it just a useless fixture for use inside a tent? I asked somebody how to use my 465 and was told 75% power at 70 cm... Is that even possible? How many weeks of veg create a plant that could survive that?

I germed again, this time under 25 µmol of LED light... a day after they were above groud they start the twisting again, got em out right quick this time and put iunder 2x24 watt T5 and ajusted to the same 25 µmols. It took a day or two for recovery and now they look great. Bit leggy maybe but growing normally. I chucked some feed water in, just to see what would happen, they took it fine. I can feel myself becoming angry and frustrated tbh. This is taking all the fun out of things. I think im just going to try and flower a single plant under t5s cause that appears to be the only way ill ever get any buds.

Iv seen posts to the effect that LEDs are just a scam. Thats not true is it?

If you read the internet enough you can get 100 different reasons for every problem. Could using 50% citric acid to PH correct cause anything like this?
 
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The light is a HLG 350R. I've used that light for germ, veg, and flower. The light puts out 660W while using 330W. The plants in the picture were started under that light for 6 weeks, then a mix of sunshine and under the light on rainy days. The last 6 weeks were flowered under the LED. No doubt big plants can be grown under sun, LED, or both.

I've never had any problems in my limited use of LED. Mainly playing around with intensity and distance - a fairly easy problem to solve. People have complained about LED lack of heat. I put a small heater and a thermometer in the same room - problem immediately solved. Certainly not purple leaves from the light. The 2 biggest causes of purple leaves are phosphorus deficiency or temps too cool for strain.

Well, there was that time I grew Grand Daddy Purple....

Hope this helps,

Longball
 
I have seen purple leafs and where the finger of a different leaf has shaded it they are still green. That points at light intensity. I cant really put a radiator in my tent and i dont think the plants would like it if i did, but heat is one of the very few variables still left to try. Going back to HID when current plants are done anyway i think, unless i have some kind of breakthru in understanding. Ill just about have time for one quick crop before the heat comes. Clearly LEDs are putting out something that T5s dont at apparently equal intensity. I read that PAR wont register anything outside a certain range. At least if i go back on HPS i can stick the PAR meter under that and see what it reads, get some idea of where to start with intensity. I have been all the way to the bottom and all the way up to the top and i cant find the sweet spot.

I had 28 degrees under LEDs in summer anyway, thats why dont think its heat.
 
I read that low light stimulates branching. In plants in general. And low light obviously causes stretching, which i get almost none. I have also read that plants turn purple to block the photosynthasis reaction when they are over loaded with light. All things point at too much light and when its nice and low i do get normal green growth, but its very very slow. And the flowering is also very slow, very retarded. Starts off looking normal, day ten sees pistils, but then it just grinds to halt and there is no progression. And thats how the buds stay.. thimble sized... :( As i said i cant lower the light any further.. I have both PK 13/14 and canna mono P and have tryed... almost no reaction. I have properly overdosed on P to try and cure this, its not the answer.

Once upon a time i could take a 1 foot clone and put it in the tent and finish with plant over a meter with so much buds the branches are bending ( and that with canna bio vega/flores and bio terra plus and nothing else ). A bad workman blames his tools they say but ... ffs.

Dont know how to even begin to address this.
 
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Just ditch the LED already. Stop trying to figure it out and switch back to HID. Finish them oldschool.
 
Diesel840 said:
Just ditch the LED already. Stop trying to figure it out and switch back to HID. Finish them oldschool.
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Yeah, but why? If i dont understand whats happening i have learned nothing and will never be able to grow with LEDs. And when HIDs dissapear altogether, what then? I need to know where the failure is. Right now i dont even know if its me or the lights.

And of course my electric bill will be going up again... :(

I agree tho, i think im going to change it before they come on tonight.
 
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Return to the basics. Do what works, get some bud going, and just absorb information for a while. Then, when you feel comfortable again, do one plant under a small LeD in a separate tent and have back at it.

I don't think HID or LED are better than the other, but HID might be more forgiving for you. Dial your grows back in old-school style, while keeping meticulous notes of temps, humidity, vpd, ph, soil composistion, nutrient timing, everything.

Once you find a killer pheno and have all the growing conditions recorded, then try LED again with that clone and reproduce the grow. I would try to replicate it as closely as possible and only tweak one or two aspects such as extra cal mag or adding a heater to get temps closer to HID.

Work with something you know and love then dial her in under LEDs.

HarryPotter said:
Right now i dont even know if its me or the lights.
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Exactly. You are frustrated and spinning your wheels. Press the reset button, enjoy Gaia's sweet Ganga, and tackle it later when you are fresh.

Good luck. I know you'll tame the elusive LED.
Diesel840
 
Diesel840 said:
Dial your grows back in old-school style, while keeping meticulous notes of temps, humidity, vpd, ph, soil composistion, nutrient timing, everything.
Click to expand...


For me, its not supposed to be that complicated. You dont have to go back that far and nobody was even talking about VPD. You can put them in the ground outside and they grow, with all the drawbacks that come with a hostile environment. Iv grown skunk 1 in my parents backgarden before and sure they get bud rot before the end but they grow the way they are supposed to. I cant ever remember if i fed those plants, i think i just left them too it, summer days and cold nights, insects and snails.. Organics should remove any idea of nutrient timing.. you can grow with those bio tabs aswell. Iv been planting single fems at one week intervals, all different strains so i dont think its a strain issue either. I got a tent thats basicly next to my bed, so there is a level of technicality thats its not realistic for me to try and manage. And in the past i never had to, not until i got LEDs.

Edit: i have no idea how you even measure VPD anyway...

Edit: the first indoor grow i ever did was under 400w behind a sheet of white plastic in the same room my tent is in now. Exact same environment. Not saying it was good but it worked. The only difference in environment between then and now is that the windows were replaced with double glazed. If it worked then, there is no logic in it not working now.
 
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HarryPotter said:
nobody was even talking about VPD
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Doesn't mean people shouldn't bring it up. Did you pause to consider if this could be part of the issue?
HarryPotter said:
You can put them in the ground outside and they grow,
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Nature is natural, indoor isn't.
HarryPotter said:
Organics should remove any idea of nutrient timing.
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Not necessarily
HarryPotter said:
i have no idea how you even measure VPD anyway...
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Your thermostat can do it for you.
HarryPotter said:
I got a tent thats basicly next to my bed, so there is a level of technicality thats its not realistic for me to try and manage.
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Literally how I started. One does what they have to do.
HarryPotter said:
And in the past i never had to, not until i got LEDs.
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Hence, going back to HID.
HarryPotter said:
For me, its not supposed to be that complicated
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What you're doing isn't working. LEDs work. It is all I've grown under. Unless you're willing to use the scientific method and actually keep track of the CRITICAL factors of growing and logically work on one aspect at a time, then go back to HID.

Except for the spider mites, my first grow was super easy. This grow started out as a complete cluster fuck. I THOUGHT I was doing everything the same, but there were little differences here and there which added up to a shit ton of problems. If I hadn't listened to everyone here and done what was needed and FIGURED out what was off, then I would have lost 3 straws plus a bunch of fems from another company.

Good luck.

I'm tapping out. o_O :ROFLMAO:
Diesel840
 
HarryPotter said:
For me, its not supposed to be that complicated.
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I feel your pain. The old ways are no longer working with LED tech. Wishing it were different won't make it so. I am wondering if seeds/plants after many years have adapted to HID light genotypically and epigenetically. I also believe that LED revs up metabolic processes and so require more fine tuning and perhaps additional inputs.
And it should be fun and can still be. Take a breath. @Diesel840 is giving good advice. Don't be frustrated, go back to HID and continue to learn how to use LED. And like @longball said, try different heights and different intensities.
BTW, I'm in the same boat, been growing many years with HID, then started using LED successfully as supplemental light. I thought it would be a snap to just go all LED but it didn't work for me initially. Yield suffered greatly in my environment. I was running 3-HLG350R's in my room and just burned them out lol. It was too much, these are commercial lights after all. So I went back to HID and will use LED for supplemental. Many successful growers combine different kinds of lighting. Lots of info available out there, avail yourself of it. There are many here who have dialed in this LED thing so it is possible. So have fun and don't forget to breathe.

mu
 
My old HPS didnt want to light so they are under 600w MH superveg from powerplant. Tent temps are slightly under 30 degrees. Leaf temps range from 28.5 to 30.5 and intensity is at 135 μmol in the very center, which seems low.. Heat is now the limiting factor on how close i really want the light to get . If it looks like its helping ill get a HPS. If lack of heat was an issue it shouldnt be any more. RH is 35% Not much i can do to change that. I got seedlings in a DR80. They were under 2 t5 but i thought what the hell and now they are under 4. Temps are 28.5, leaf temps almost the same and RH is at 65% They look happy in there, stems arrow straight and angled towards the lights, they are currently recieving almost twice the intensity that would cause them distress under the LEDs.

So yeah once i looked at things like this i can see why heat might be a factor. The conditions under the MH are really quite like being in strong sunlight. The thing is the jorge cervantes book, growers bible says something along the lines of cannabis wants to live in the same kind of conditions as you do and will be happy like that. I guess that threw me off a little.

Ill post if there are massive improvements.
 
musashi said:
I feel your pain. The old ways are no longer working with LED tech. Wishing it were different won't make it so. I am wondering if seeds/plants after many years have adapted to HID light genotypically and epigenetically. I also believe that LED revs up metabolic processes and so require more fine tuning and perhaps additional inputs.
And it should be fun and can still be. Take a breath. @Diesel840 is giving good advice. Don't be frustrated, go back to HID and continue to learn how to use LED. And like @longball said, try different heights and different intensities.
BTW, I'm in the same boat, been growing many years with HID, then started using LED successfully as supplemental light. I thought it would be a snap to just go all LED but it didn't work for me initially. Yield suffered greatly in my environment. I was running 3-HLG350R's in my room and just burned them out lol. It was too much, these are commercial lights after all. So I went back to HID and will use LED for supplemental. Many successful growers combine different kinds of lighting. Lots of info available out there, avail yourself of it. There are many here who have dialed in this LED thing so it is possible. So have fun and don't forget to breathe.

mu
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No experience here with LEDs but am curious because of what I have seen on YouTube. Some really awesome grows…I used HPs from start to finish but MH for veg would have been better. Too much stretching under HPS only. Your hypotheses is interesting Mu but if you think about it then plants have had many more years under sunlight so going under any artificial light should not have worked. Anyway, it’s probably distance and intensity. Light spectrum of LEDs are pretty damn good And the top line have great color adjustments. I’ve seen the huge industrial grows with them and they are way above the canopy which reminds me of a huge bud and I mean huge that I saw in Amsterdam at Sensi’s place and the light, not sure if MH or HPS but was one of the two sure, was well above the plant which surprised me. I mean this thing was huge! one Main cola was it. It was probably at least a 5 foot flower about 6-7 inches in diameter. Sorry for the USA measurements. I also saw a couple small hobby grows with cheap Amazon bought leds that two beginners were doing in different cities and their plants were very nice. These guys never used MH or HPS and were first timers so who knows. Im thinking that it’s a whole new way to grow and we need to learn it And forget the old ways since they don’t work with LEDs like you said. The guy at a grow shop in the area said that LEDs are what everyone buys and use now. He sells HIDs to only a couple guys anymore. Some shops don’t even carry the HIDs anymore. I want to go LEDs for a number of reasons especially heat so hopefully someone who really knows can clue us all in what the secret to succeed is.
 
www.blackdogled.com

Leaf Surface Temperature with HPS, MH, CFL and LED Grow Lights

Effects of Different Artificial Grow Lighting Technologies on Leaf Surface Temperature Table of Contents Abstract FLIR Image of a BD240-U Introduction Why does Leaf Surface Temperature (LST) Matter? What is the Ideal Leaf Surface Temperature? What Affects Leaf Surface Temperature? The Evidence...
www.blackdogled.com www.blackdogled.com

"There is a prevailing consensus that 75 °F is the ideal ambient temperature to grow Cannabis under HPS lighting without CO2 supplementation. This experimental result indicates that an 84 °F ambient air temperature is required to achieve the same optimal leaf surface temperatures when using plant-optimized LED lighting-- and that a 75 °F ambient air temperature with LED lighting would not achieve optimal leaf surface temperatures, slowing metabolic rates and leaf and flower production."

I wonder if this is a clue to why. The results for cannabis are about half way down the page, an interesting read. Heating a tent with extraction comes with its own issues tho aswell. I even wonderd if the answer is not to have any extraction and use one of those CO2 bags... buut humidity and smell would still need to be dealt with. Its a shame this kind of information isnt more commonly advertised.
 
I do not mean to offend, just wondering when you are going to get on with it. Where are the plants? What are you growing? Pictures are very helpful in diagnosing problems. You did ask for help and many came forward to help. Wondering if you tried the suggestions offered to you by the many members. You have not said that you have.
Don't get caught up in the details just grow as best you can and it will improve. Go back to the basics as been suggested to you then methodically add one input at a time and observe.
A recap: Increase your heat and humidity. Add calmag. Adjust the height and intensity.

mu
 
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