MEDMAKER420 a.K.a the Aardvark 2012 MMJ Grow Show

[medmaker420]

coco always kills it over everything when ya dial it in.....coco does rock lol. Im not sure if i am gonna flower in coco or my ebb & gro buckets with hygromite (silica rock). Decisions, decisions.

yeah I have ran coco plenty and agree. I think the flavor side of things soil mixes win but yield wise I have never complained about coco and I too love silica rock and why I had to give this cocorok a go. I normally ran straight coco especially in my large vert stadium runs because it just made life easier.

Only downfall I saw with straight coco was if you ever let them dry out they will fall over ( lol it rarely happened and obviously is due to growers errors not the plants lol ), that is another reason I love grow rocks on the bottom of my pots and cut in.

 

[Arthritis_sucks]

The dreaded tip over, happened once when i went away on vacay an my girls drank through their res. efore i got back. Sad thing to walk into.

 

[medmaker420]

The dreaded tip over, happened once when i went away on vacay an my girls drank through their res. efore i got back. Sad thing to walk into.

totally agree

The worst one for me ever was in a vert stadium with 3 levels and one of the top ones lightened up and did the domino effect on the ones below her... It is these little accidents that keep up growers adapting and doing our best not to repeat dumb mistakes lol and it taught me to add a "lip" to my stadium levels to remove that issue IF it ever were to try to happen again.

vacation + growing is a stressful venture for sure lol.

 

[radvancan]

Heya mate.
Your Kushy´Haze look´s absolutly healty. So fast and beautiful growth not seen for a long time. Delighted your ratio of female/male. You can look forward to large buds with lots of resin. Here a few pictures on my selection of 20 seeds. More photos can be found at my album´s.

New Kushy´Haze
My last Kushy´Haze

 

[jenery]

Very cool and inspiring grows, thanks for this and good luck!

 

[thefanfx]

hey m8

ok very impressive :]

unfortunately i cannot afford such systems :] , here it cost "a liver + a kidney"

whatever , i have this one here at the GrowShop and would like to ask you - What do you think about this ?



It's MAZAR LED UFO® Red&Blue 7:2 (not on these pictures , these are just illustrative )

90Watt
LED RED 2700K
30m2
Flowering

It's far away from 600W but still cost 220 Euro here

So what do you think ?

note: I have mini growbox 140x60x60cm from SecretJarden

 

[medmaker420]

I am a firm believer in the "run what you brung" mentality.

You don't NEED 600 watts to grow plants brother and getting starting with what you can afford now is exactly what I would recommend ( if the future grows you do will still need it and use it).

As you expand you can just keep buying those "ufo style" leds or other panels and just keep adding to the grow areas IF they ever get larger, more tents or cabinets get made/bought etc.

One thing you do need to look into for your light though is what its actual running wattage is. On average it is 1/2 to 3/4 of the listed wattage. For example the 200x3w runs a bit over 300 watts and isn't a 600 watt even though they show them as 200x3w.

A 90w ( unless it is listing true wattage ) will odds are run around 40-50 watts and you also need to take into account the fans that are running along with those leds which are taking some of the juice as well.

I would just get your first, that is you get started and expand as needed. If later you can get a larger/higher wattage panel or ufo you can use this one for the veg cabinet later.

Just whatever you get, imagine how it will fit into your grow IF you decide later to expand. I wish I would have followed this thought process before buying 250hps, 400hps, 1k hps, 600 hps etc. I learned that the best thing for my expansion back then is a 1k for veg that can be dimmed because the bulbs are just cheaper than 600s PLUS if I got a switchable I could run them as veg or flower or both IF needed. I never ever use a 400 for anything and if I were to tell new growers ( hps wise ) I would tell them to go digi 600 or digi 1k and skip anything smaller. If you need anything smaller ( usually for veg go for cfl, t5, biax, leds etc ) then try a different light source completely because cost wise it didn't add up or at least how I saw it.

With LEDs I see it as the same thing, If you can see a place for the light you are planning on buying NOW in your growing future buy it up but if you are only buying to buy something you can afford NOW I would do more research and plan the next 6+ months of grow time and envision where you see yourself and any and all expansions in the future.

hey m8

ok very impressive :]

unfortunately i cannot afford such systems :] , here it cost "a liver + a kidney"

whatever , i have this one here at the GrowShop and would like to ask you - What do you think about this ?

[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=40737&pictureid=964059&thumb=1]View Image[/url] [URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=40737&pictureid=964058&thumb=1]View Image[/url] [URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=40737&pictureid=964060&thumb=1]View Image[/url]

It's MAZAR LED UFO® Red&Blue 7:2 (not on these pictures , these are just illustrative )

90Watt
LED RED 2700K
30m2
Flowering

It's far away from 600W but still cost 220 Euro here

So what do you think ?

note: I have mini growbox 140x60x60cm from SecretJarden

UPDATES on their way:

Week 5 flowering pics and videos

lbk and kh from field marshall seeds cuts in the aero bucket cloner

germination of Poison Genetics Casey's Cousin x SourDiesel IBL:
Casey's Cousin is Thai leaning pheno from CaseyJones S1's that finishes pretty quick and has an incredible crisp clean uplifting high. She was seeded up w/ a stand-out male from Rez's 2010 release of SourDiesel IBL. Sour Thai anyone?

veg growth updates under the 7 veg lights I am currently testing which is the first 4 that I started with as well as the 3 new "micro panels" that I recently did kill a watt meter readings of.

I have hacked any males ( pretty solid odds as far as male 2 female ratios under all of the veg and flower panels so far ) and hermies ( the hermies all came from the blackwater strain SO not sure if I am even going to try her anymore ) and now that I am getting into the weeks where the phenos and strains to keep start to stand out growth wise it is allowing me to spot which strains are doing better under the LEDs compared to other strains/phenotypes. I don't consider a female a "keeper" though until I have tested the potency and the type of meds it will be and if it will work for me personally no matter what sort of yield it puts out.

 

[vukman]

Heya brother....sorry for my absence recently...some personal shit going on...as well as my DIY light which is eating my time as well but gotta do what we gotta do.

I'm looking forward to your next update as always especially since you are running 100% LED from start to finish. The girls look like they're doing great and I'm sure you;ll find something out of that huge batch of ladies you have that you can call 'keepers'

As always......great work and keep it up and all that other happy malarky...

 

[medmaker420]

LED Grow Light Reviews

LED Grow Light Reviews

Heya brother....sorry for my absence recently...some personal shit going on...as well as my DIY light which is eating my time as well but gotta do what we gotta do.

I'm looking forward to your next update as always especially since you are running 100% LED from start to finish. The girls look like they're doing great and I'm sure you;ll find something out of that huge batch of ladies you have that you can call 'keepers'

As always......great work and keep it up and all that other happy malarky...

glad to have you back around brother, focus on the stuff that keeps you happy and moving forward and the rest will work itself out.

can't wait to see how your diy led light grows for you as well. I have been stoked by the LEDs so far and can't wait to see how the next few cycles go as I locate those keepers for sure.

GROW UPDATES:

Currently Doing A Test Grow for POISON GENETICS!
Just started germinating the Caseys Cousin x Sour Diesel IBL

and have a few other freebies that I germinated as well to see if I can spot some keepers among them as well which are:

sssdh reg
super silver fem
cheese fem
buddha tahoe fem
OTM
the og #18
Delahaze
auto white russian fem
white widow fem
mkage fem

quick shot from today (day 40)

Finishing up a few videos and pic updates and glad to say I have spotted plenty of keeper females that I will run more of clone wise as well as learned which phenos will not work well in my garden. Anything that I see running 2+ weeks longer than the rest of the bunch gets hacked. I don't need sativa meds at the moment so faster flowering phenos that yield decent are what I am after.

quick shot from today 2 (day 40)

I see a couple great phenos of the jedi kush but the jackpot royale is doing killer under the different led panels from what I can tell. One pheno especially seems to be the fastest of the bunch so I will odds are take a ton of clones from the one I kept in veg. I kept a clone of each plant currently flowering so IF she is worth running I can cut clones and keep that in the grow and if not I will just run the clone one last time and finish them off.

quick shot from today 3 (day 40)

The lady berry kush and kushy haze are doing great. I am doing clones of the keeper phenos. I have run both these strains before and they are very uniform so spotting the keepers can be based on many things. I love certain odors specific lbks put off and the fruitier the better imho. The kushy haze I try to locate the faster budding pheno, there is a long and short within them and spotting them can take time but checking out radvancans pics you can see the different phenotypes while uniform some do run longer than others.

quick shot from today 4 (day 40)

 

[medmaker420]

More Update Pictures That I Took Today

More Update Pictures That I Took Today

I was getting some general garden cleaning done, removing dead leaves, staking the girls that need it, bent some of the girls ( snapping / bending ) versus topping to see how they do using that method and so far have sprung up happily.

Here are some of the new arrivals, some want less nutes others need more, thats the life when you run multiple seed grown strains.

and then the girls further along:

quick shot from today 5 (day 40)

Just from the reduction in temps alone I am loving growing with leds but I would like to test out 600 running watts of LEDs versus a 600 hps and see how they compare running the same exact clones in each section. I have a 600 hps quantum that would be perfect for the test, and then I could run 2 of the 300 running watt panels and see how they compare in flower.

quick shot from today 6 (day 40)

I think that as well as a 1000 watts of LEDs versus a 1k hps would be worth doing because I really haven't seen many watt versus watt tests when it comes to LEDs ( anyone know of anyone comparing 600 watts leds versus 600 watts hps or 1k watts leds versus 1k watts hps??? ).

quick shot from today 7 (day 40 lower growth)

I have seen a ton of new led growers lately and there seems to be a ton of new grow journals popping up so its great to see for sure.

For those following along or those who currently grow with LEDs yourself what have your experiences been so far? Any issues, deficiencies, gripes, praises or anything that was different from another grow light that you ran previously?

quick shot from today 8 (day 40 more lower growth)

I am digging the overall heat reduction as I have mentioned but still wanting to get the grows maximized and locating which strains perform best under these different panels is really going to UP the harvest results as each new cycle closes so I can't wait to see how they improve over the common months.

 

[vukman]

HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!

BUDDY!!!!! you must be a very happy man. I know I would be with results like that off of the LEDs at day 40. Those girls look great!. I know it's a combination of the lighting, grow medium, water and just plain ol' fashion love but you've definitely got it going on over there!!!!

As for your thoughts about running a watt to watt comparison, I was thinking of actually making my next DIY a 1K LED but seeing how damn bright this one is now, I'm kinda thinking of scaling that back to a 600W which should be more or less double what I built this time around.

The whites alone are enough to freaking blind you looking at them an they run at around 70W if I'm not mistaken and remember right.. I got it all on my thread if you wanna look bro...

Those people at GrowBlu.com really have something there though with the ratios and wave lengths they've dialed into there.

Excellent results for sure..

 

[Biatchzxz]

Hi my name is Medmaker and I'm a Beanaholic. . I'm also addicted to bean collection and getting more and more strains. I just can't get enough. Gonna start doing some serious breeding

 

[Husky Jackal]

Wonderful progress, the plants look great !
Can't wait to see some final weights...
Thanks for testing those panels !
Peace, HJ.

 

[SOURDIESEL1]

nice shots of the girls. speaking about grow on what u can afford i cant seem to afford to grow any were then outside becouse i spend all my extra money on beans. some day i will be able to grow inside. your grow is amazing keep up the good work.

 

[medmaker420]

Thanks everyone for the kind words! It means a ton to me as always and I too am happy at the results I have seen so far. Honestly I can't see anyone who has attempted running hps grows in a Cali summer and then tried LEDs to ever want to go back. Dealing with AC's during the summer time + lighting just hurts when the pg&e bill comes around each month here in California because our power is not cheap ( not saying others don't have it worse BUT any cost savings is worth looking into ) however there are those who run smaller setups where ac's are not needed and where running single 1k's hps bulbs in the summertime is more than doable.

After doing some testing so far I can see why so many have made the switch. I can see those who run in the summer time and have had issues making the switch just to skip that headache and then go to running the hps in the winter time BUT even within the winter the LEDs would odds are bring out more color in the plants due to a lower canopy temp but right now that is just speculation since we aren't exactly in winter temps just yet.

I do not believe that LEDs are some miracle light where you only need 1 watt of LEDs to compare to 250hps, that is HYPE and there seems to be plenty of that hype going around these days lol. I can see 300 to 400 watts of LEDs comparing with a 600 hps and I do believe watt to watt LEDs would end up winning out overall. Now is that due to them being more efficient, or maybe the spectrum used or simply just more light sources beaming down on them? Many what ifs but I do see LEDs being more than comparable with hps if done right, have the right clone to run and MAXIMIZE the space.

I just don't want to get into a led versus hps debate because I see it as a waste of time for sure. Its that ford vs chevy thing and the way I see it, as long as you grow the meds that work for you and your situation then GREAT!

GROW ON BROTHERS AND SISTERS!!!

 

[Full Of Peace]

Definately a very cool setup you have, gotta love the space age.

 

[gtgio]

Hey man, how're you finding the build quality on those lights? They seem cheaper than most comparable lights I've seen, are they just really well priced?

Good growing btw, plants look great.

 

[Keep goin]

Hey Medmaker...

WOW...is all I can say!! Late to the show...but better late...

Incredible work...I love the LED concept (I run it on the side right now). Coverage of the canopy has been my biggest peeve.

GroBlu seems to have alleviated that issue with the shape of those elongated panels. Are those still in testing stage? I don't see them available on their site yet. Would you say 2 of them over a 4x4??

I agree with your statements about LED vs HPS...in some ways it's not worth trying to convince people. Let them see and then decide. For those of us who "know" it's nice to see someone blowing it up the way you are...Thanks!!
Not to mention your obvious seed connections, etc. I'm jealous for sure...I'm living in a cave, working genetics I've been running for years, just trying to stay out of a cage. The differing laws in this country are hilarious...and NOT ha ha funny.

And I second gtgio's question about build of Groblu's lights...their prices seem beyond "fair". I was pretty much ready to go DIY for my next LED. But after looking at your grow and their prices...I'm ready to pull the trigger with them.

Thanks again for the awesome work...

 

[medmaker420]

I am loving these panels so far and growblu is actually testing out multiple manufacturers and spectrums to see which works best. It looks like I currently have lights from 4 different manufacturers and the fit and finish is solid with each one. I am not sure how many different manufacturers they have tested overall but I do know there are plenty to choose from these days.

day 41

I had a loose connection in one of the lights ( veg light #4 ) but I think that happened during shipping and I thought it was a driver that went out so I was shipped 4 extra drivers for the troubles so now I have backups IF one does go out.

day 41

These 5 different flowering panels are all "test panels" and all running separate spectrums. I don't know the specifics but once the different manufacturers, spectrum choices and stock are in place they will open up for business and as more panels get tested and stocked they too will be added to their online store. I do agree the pricing seems pretty solid but I know they are buying them in bulk and stocking them in the states so they odds are will get better pricing OR they are offering them for less to hook up fellow growers (-; whatever the reason, I hope they have solid success in the future!

day 41

As far as panels, I would run 2 in a 4x4 to maximize or run one on a mover which I think would still be a solid option for those not wanting to buy two panels right off the bat. I really think a light mover + a panel ( or panels ) is going to be the future of LED growing because man do they seem to go hand in hand ( i'm sure I have written that before lol ).

day 41

I would like to see how the all blu veg panels do finishing off some flowering girls in week 6-8. Swap the flowering panels out for all blu veg panels and see what that does, just like many do with the mh switch. I will probably give that a go in 2013 after a few regular cycles go through.

day 41

I always WANT to go the DIY route with grow supplies but when it comes down to it I like buying from a company so if anything goes wrong I have someone to yell at besides myself LOL.

 

[Keep goin]

I am not sure how many different manufacturers they have tested overall but I do know there are plenty to choose from these days.

^^Yeah, THAT'S the problem.!! Some are just looking to take advantage of growers. So choosing one is difficult do to "marketing hype"...I mean let's face it they're all touting "their product"!! I think if I read GroBlu's site and hadn't seen your grow...I'd be familiar with the marketing approach, and discount it to some degree. (I've become desensitized to it!! Been looking at LED's for years!) Ours is the best..here's why!! Reading is great, seeing puts it all in place.

So, Thank YOU...

I do agree the pricing seems pretty solid but I know they are buying them in bulk and stocking them in the states so they odds are will get better pricing OR they are offering them for less to hook up fellow growers (-; whatever the reason, I hope they have solid success in the future!

Well, whatever the reason...it is refreshing. Obviously they are working on a different model. Much thinner profit margins...that means they plan on selling LOTS!! I think they will have great success. 3 year warranty, low price, and all stocked in the states.!!
I don't think you have to "hope" too much...if that isn't a recipe for success, I don't know what is.

I'm not sure about using a mover. Maybe if I was concerned with wattage? I think more points of light, more canopy, more bud!!

That's why I like the elongated panels...my experience with my Lumigrow ES330 is that it's great right under the unit..THAT'S IT!!

How long is the panel you've got there?? Again, not up on the site yet...I don't see the all blue Veg up there either? Maybe I'm missing it.? The others seem to be ready to be put up. I guess after you and others like you, give them the final go ahead on the back end.

Thanks again, very informative thread...and I'm ready to switch back from the DIY route given their prices. (for exactly the reasons you stated) Hopefully they will be as responsive to customers as they seem to be with testers. (the extra drivers they sent to you)

Thanks