1512W LED Perpetual Medical Harvest (Aeroponics)

A few people have asked me recently why I don't post a lot of pictures from my own garden online, and the honest answer is simply that I didn't have much to show up until now. I went on a trip to Mexico in September, and during that time a lot of my plants stressed out, so I chopped a lot of them early, and left some of the scragglers that were in better condition, alone in 1 tray. It took us a couple of weeks to get some more plants ready to fill up the bloom room, and now I welcome you to see what I do personally with LED's.

First and foremost, I am a legal medical patient, within my legal guidelines for plant #, etc..., and this is my personal garden. I don't support breaking the law, or the illegal growing of marijuana.

Here's some information on my garden:

Each plant veges for about 4-5 weeks prior to entering the bloom room. During that time, they are usually topped about 3x, causing the plants to grow into super-thick little bushes with lots of tops. Once they reach 18" height, they transfer to bloom.

The bloom room operates at 85-90 degrees during the "day" cycle, and 65-70 degrees during the "night cycle. The humidity remains between 60-75%. There is a wall-mounted fan on each side of the room for good air movement, and of of course a carbon filter. My bloom room is a sealed environment, with CO2 levels at a constant 1500ppm via a fuzzy-logic controller. Since I use aeroponics, the nutrient solution is run through a water chiller, which maintains it at a constant 67-72 degrees. There is also a micro-pore air diffuser, and a commercial air pump constantly supplying oxygen to the solution.

In my bloom room are two 2' x 4' x 1' Aeroponics trays that our company manufactures. At full capacity, I run 8 plants per tray. Hanging over each tray, are six 126W LED Grow Lights that we also developed (as most of you know). So that's 756W over 8 plants x 2. The total room measures 9' x 8', with an 8' ceiling, and is lined in 97% reflective mylar (from the HID days). The canopy space measures approximately 5' x 6'.

I feed my girls Advanced Nutrients, Iguana Juice Bloom, and Dr. Hornby's Big Bud (not the current crap advanced makes since they split with Hornby). I run no other supplements currently in bloom. The nutrients are added per the manufacturer's recommendations for heavy feeding, and the reservoir is topped off with water mid-way through the week. Nutrients are changed out weekly when the system gets cleaned.

The current strains you'll see in these photographs are: Strawberry Cough X White Rhino, Ice, Grape Ape, Maui Wowie, AK47, Purple Arrow, Sensi Star, and Afghani X Brazilian Skunk. These plants will be replaced in a few months by Pineapple Express, Barney's LSD, Yumbolt 47, LA Confidential, Alaskan Ice, and A-Train.

Anyhow, these pictures were taken 10-14-09, Enjoy!:

 

CLOSE UP SHOTS OF LAST 2 PHOTOS:

 

My oh my, those are beautiful.

 

not bad at all for led's! nice!

 

... uh hum.. so you have the right to the medicine and I or someone else dont?

pttf...

 

i know what ya mean orison...................but i do believe she is just saying that........i see alot of people start off their grow journals with something similar to that statement.

It really does seem like LED's have come ALONG way in the sense of plant growth...........sure they hardly run any watts, run much cooler than HID's, and seem to produce a good amount...............i still cannot justify the price of these things tho...........and i think 1512W of LED is kinda ridiculous.........i thought one of the main reasons for running LED's was to keep the power consumption down.........1512W is more than my seed/clone, veg cab, and flower cab combined!!!! And i run fluoros, HID's, and plenty of fans!!!

To each their own, but to me it boils down to this........

2 x 400W HPS - around $300 shipped, with bulbs.
2 x 126W LED Penetrator (400W equiv.) from LEDGirl - around $800 and that's not even shipped....

I don't know, it's awesome that people are having excellent success with these things........but i think i'll stick to my inexpensive, heat building, power draining, bud building HID's

- 42o -

 

If I had the legal right to grow, I'd probably do whatever I had to to keep it that way, even if it included having to put some stupid disclaimer like the one she put up.

Looks good LEDGirl.

 

So you think 1512W LED is ridiculous, but do you say the same thing to guys using 6 x 1000W HPS, or 10 x 1000W HPS? Just because my garden is far different from your own, doesn't give you the right to put me down for using a high power setup. Geez. I replaced 4,000W of HID's with my 1512W LED, and no longer run an A/C unit at 1000W for 12 hours a day, nor do I have a noisy ventilation system any longer. I save $160 a month on electric, over $600 a year on bulbs, which comes out to over $2,000 a year in operational savings vs my previous HID setup. My HID setup cost $1900 less than my LED setup retails for, including bulbs, ballasts, ventilation, and A/C. So in year 1, LED's paid me back for the investment, and for the next 4 years I pocket over $2k per year in operational savings. I also yield more now with LED, and more consistently, which equates to quite a bit in the end. So, dropping 60% of your power consumption, getting more of a better quality product, and no longer battling stress factors like heat, isn't valuable to you?

Before you scoff at the cost, imagine only this: a 400W HID in the hands of a pro gardener can yield near a pound. 400W of LED in those same hands could yield 2+. So if the LED lighting setup cost $1400 more than the 400W HPS, is the yield difference off of one harvest enough to cover the difference? For a med patient who might otherwise be buying their ganja from a dispensary, it makes quite an impact when you have to pay for weed cause you're short on a harvest, and even a half pound would cost you way more than $1400 from a dispensary...

No offense man, but don't come at me with dealer prices for the cheapest HID's you can get, and try to make an argument out of it. Anyone who just read that you got 2 x 400W HPS for $300 shipped, called BS (or thinks they are used). My cost as a hydro store owner, for a 400W HPS light setup, from the MFR is $150 not including shipping. The retail on them is $275 a piece. The Quality HPS units (air cooled hood, hortilux bulbs) sell for closer to $400. So comparing a BMW to a Pinto is basically what you're trying to do. Our lights are the best of their kind when it comes to LED's, so if you want a price comparison, they'd go against the quality 400W setup. 2 x $400 = $800, which is $100 less than 2 of our 126W units shipped. They also use about 1/3 the power, and don't carry the need for bulb replacements, nor will they cause reduced yields due to those hot times. Your $150 HPS would be comparable to the $150 UFO you buy on eBay that won't grow worth a damn (although the HPS would still give you decent results, but we all know that). Quality lights cost more, and you get what you pay for.

 

look, i wasn't trying to put you down at all..........i really do think it's awesome, the advances LED's have gone through. And it's even cooler knowing that there are a good few of you peep's using them with great success. I also had no clue you were running the amount of HID's you were before switching to LED's........so yes, 1512 of LED is far less draining then the 4000 of HID........no doubt.

Also, $150 is not the cheapest i can find a 400W HID..........if i wanted cheap cheap id build my own........but i've been running one of the 400's for a good while now and it's still rockin just like the day i bought it........oh yeah........just incase you want the link.........http://htgsupply.com/viewproduct.asp?productID=47929

anywho, didn't want this to be a flame or anything like that at all.............good luck to you and your adventures.......by the way i did find the thread on the other site, where someone is testing one of your lights out for you and i am watching with interest.

 

Sorry everyone, I went on a trip this past week and have been really busy since I got back. Here are some update images I snapped the evening of 11-22:

 

very nice!

 

Nice work! I would bet that these lights are on par with HPS watt for watt! You could probaly even replace a 150 watt HPS with one of your 126 watt units! Keep up the good work, and I hope sales are booming!

 

Update Pictures 11-29-09: