G'day

[Bud marley]

G'day fellow enthusiests,
I'm a professional smoker and novice grower from down under. I've been reading this forum from the shadows for long enough and thought it was time to register and say hi. I would love to fish for some of the wisdom from this knowledgeable community and any advice wound be a fantastic help! :-)

I have been growing outdoors now for 5 years. And have taken a huge interest in it. This year I grew some very nice sativas, my best season so far. I have learnt heaps and am progressing very well. How ever I have recently moved house and as growing is Illegal here, it unfortunately is no longer possible for me to grow outside at home, without being noticed. I do have a guerilla grow planned this season, how ever this is not why I am here. U

So, I have decided that if I can't grow outdoors, it's time to start growing indoors! This I am very excited about. So I am currently building a grow cabinet that I am planning on growing just 1, possibly 2 plants in using the scrog method. Now, as I have developed an obsession with this, I want to do it as professionally as I can... Learning everything I can and eventually get to breeding (this is much further down the track) I have got a few good books and have been doing a shit load of research. And I know all about the right, fans, reflective gear, nutrients, how to hide light, dampen noise, etc... I'm even going to use a carbon filter and tank of C02 (probably not necessary for the size of my grow, but as I said, I want to be as pro as I can, I wanna learn on a small scale 1st, before I move on to bigger and better things) I am progressing well and am fairly confident. But the thing I am stuck on is Lights!

I really want to get on board the LED train, as it is definitely the future in grow lights. I have done a tonne of research on these and from what I can see, there are really only 2 brands that I think are worth buying and that is blackdogled grow lights and supergrowled. My grow area is only a very small 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 foot and 4 1/2 foot high. I am favouring supergrow led at the moment and my question (yes I got there eventually) is this... The Halo SGL6 says it will cover my grow area. I am thinking of getting 2 of them... but if I was to go bigger and better and buy the spectrum king, will it produce a better yeild than 2 Halos? considering the size of my grow area? Or would it be wasted on an area that small? The reason I ask is the spectrum king is significantly dearer and although better, I'm not sure that I need it. Or do I get the blackdog Micro-U instead of the Halo's?

Can some body please help me? Also any other advice in regards to everything I've said will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

P.S. I'm sorry for the long post, I'm aware that I could've asked the question in 40 words instead of 400. But I have just had some very nice skunk, and this strain makes me wanna talk my ass off ;-)

Thanks again.

[kbag]

Hi there Bud and welcome to the forum. I have grown outdoors before and its totally different to growing indoors. I find that the speed of what things happen throws me abit and makes it difficult to control your grow. saying that i am new to this but did want to scrog from the off but i was advised not to on my first grow indoors.
I will scrog on the next grow and i would like to use led lights as well so eagerly await answers to your question.

[Saturnalia]

G'day fella!
I am a novice grower who just happens to have an SK450 on loan. I am growing a single plant under one of them (a Black Diesel) and am considering scrogging it out to maximize canopy area, and also the fact that it is just a single plant. Check out the grow in the diary section and see how I get on with it. The light is the dog's bollocks. Let's see if I can do it justice.

[slo-han]

Hey Bud - nuther novice grower for inside. I started w/cfl's and am experimenting w/ "cheap china led's" so far all I have is a couple under them and also have a 2 foot agro tube beside them. I am rotating the plants as one led has dominant blue and the other dominant red. Thy also have amber and white in them. The clones have been under them for two weeks and I raised my lights today. All I can tell you is so far is things look good - slo-han

[Bud marley]

Hi Slo-han,
I am interested to see what your cheap LED's can pull off. Keep me posted.
G'day Saturnalia, I'll be watching Your grow with great interest. You are running pretty much the same set up as I want. Your black diesel looks good, or is such a sexy plant with its thick leaves.
Hey kbag, I'm curious to know why you were advised not to grow with the scrog method first go? Hopefully some of the advanced growers on this site can shed some light on my LED questions for us.
Cheers fellas.

[Blaze4daze]

Welcome Bud marley

You have brought up an interesting question concerning your leap to LED Lighting. I have read your post where you are not sure which LED you want to purchase. I just left the blackdogLED.com site and did notice that they come with quite ball~baring cooling fans.

My first LED that I purchased last season came with 6 quite ball~baring cooling fans and half way thru my grow one of those fans started making a whining noise. After contacting the company about this issue, I was told that the user of the light is suppose to routinely use dust removing spray to keep the cooling fans from getting dust build~up.

So I bought a big can of the spray and had to continue spraying all the cooling fans every week, so I would feel comfortable continuing using my LED, and not lose one of the cooling fans, before I harvested my plants, which would have caused my whole light to overheat and burn it~self out. What a pain this turned out to be. Not really sure if I was getting the dust spray into the right area over the fans, to do a thuro job with the spray. With the venting holes in the casing not really allowing me to properly see exactly where to apply the dust spray.

For this reason I ordered the Spectrum King from SuperGrowLED.com for my next grow, which (does not have) cooling fans to worry about. That and the fact that I'd have to continuously spray the cooling fans on my first LED for dust build~up, and take the chance it could effect any of the remaining fans.

Spending what I did for my first LED and have this happen, I was very disappointed they didn't even bother to send maintenance instructions with the light, in the first place, or this would not have happened.

I think it's important to let people that are looking into LED lighting to know that dust will build~up inside their fan~cooled LED's, unless they take the right steps to prevent this from happening to their LED light, if it comes with a cooling fan system.