What we have here is a failure to prosper

Grow Cycle Seedling
41

LOL, sounds like your LED light is heating up your tent too much. I’m not laughing at you, just run into tons of people around here that say they gotta go with LED lights because HPS/MH lights are “impossible” to keep cool and then I hear them having temp problems with LED. You are having more problems keeping a LED setup cool than I do with HPS/MH, and I see alot of that.

Here is my veg tent setup that stays very cool, a 3x3x7. My house temp is kept at 69F (winter, summer, all the time).

When I start seeds/clones I only use that light hanging on the back wall, it’s not turned on, it’s a Hydrofarm 125 watt CFL, came with the socket/reflector called a FlouroWing. It’s great for seeds and clones. I use that for the first couple weeks. With only that light on, no fans running, no exhaust fan going, the tent stays about 74-75F, perfect for seed starting and clones with no air blowing around to dry out your potting soil.

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After the seeds sprout and start growing, I turn on 1 of the 6" fans just to move them around a little to make their stems stronger and help keep them short. Within a couple weeks seedlings/clones get the metal halide light which is awesome for veg.

In the pic, there are 4 clones vegging (about 35 days old) under a 600 watt MH in a cooltube air-cooled reflector, connected to an 6" Active Air inline fan rated at like 425 CFM, exhausting into my attic. The temp in the tent stays at a nice cool 77F running a 600 watt MH or HPS. The humidity is 22, which some people around here will say is too low and all my plants will die but that never happens.

In a few weeks these girls will be transplanted to their final 7 gallon fabric pot and moved into the flowering tent.

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This tent has 1000+ watts of light in a 3x3x7. 600 watt HPS overdriven to 660 watts plus around 400 watts of LED. This tent stays around 79F with a humidity of 22-24 Also sports a cooltube air cooled hood with 425CFM exhaust fan.

Good environments make for easy growing.

42

Nice! Thx for sending the pics. I have both my 300W led and a 315 WH MH available. I haven’t been using the MH lamp. That thing heated the tent to 115 F in about 15 mins.

43

Yeah HPS/MH really need a air cooled reflector when used in small areas, gotta send that heat somewhere else but easy to do with the right equipment.

Larry 44

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45

I’d have that light about 4 feet up to keep the heat off the seed pots and point the fans up at the light away from your pots. Seeds don’t need any light really til they sprout. I’m thinking your cooking your seeds/sprouts. I have tried to start seeds with a similar LED light in the past and the heat was a factor that I didn’t want to have to deal with seedlings, Thats why I went with the 125 watt CFL, not much heat.

46

Oh, interesting! You may be right about the cooking. When it first sprouted, I moved the light about 3 inches away from the plant, and by 24 hours later it was shriveled and lying flat. Maybe the other seeds never sprouted because of excess heat, IDK.

47

Yeah 3 inches would have fried that tender sprout no doubt and cook any seeds. I’d start up high, 3-4 feet above to start and after they sprout, bring it down a little, a little at a time, but I’d never have that light any closer than 20 inches from the plants.

48

Got it. Will report back soon.

49

This plant is 3 weeks post-sprout. About 3/4inches tall. WTF?

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50

Pedmoss, perlite and a little vermiculite makes excellent starter

51

The truth is, if cannabis seeds are viable they will sprout just fine in straight peat or a growdan cube or whatever. All the energy to grow up to the first and even the second set of true leaves is in the seed. Heres proof, take a seed and sprout it in a damp paper towel… carefully pull the two mickey mouse cotyledons out of the towel just far enough to get some light. Keep watering as needed and see how far it grows till it fails. Ill almost guarantee you get to the set of 3 leaves before it struggles. Heck try it with almost any seed from vegetables or even trees!

52

Hmm. Interesting. I have recently had luck with Root Riot seed starters. 5/6 seeds have sprouted within 3 days in them. I recently bought 5 seeds from a company I had not tried, before. 3/3 of the new company seeds sprouted in 2 days with no soak or paper towel stuff. Maybe I have been the victim of bad seeds in the recent past.

53

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54

I’m a new grower but I’d say your light was too close originally. I also use the soak in water, paper towel in a baggie method and had no issues. Seeds soaked almost a day and popped a tail the following day and I am pretty sure sprouted a day or so after going in the solo cup. Not to be silly, but are you putting the tails pointed down when you plant them? Also sounds like heat is an issue, what’s your humidity looking like in your tent? I have a 600w led in my 3x3 but I used cheap cfl 100w bulb to get my seeds to sprout and had no issues with 3 different strains. I think a pack of bulbs and the reflector was about 20 bucks or less and I had very good results.

55

Thanks, @Vance420. I think that you are right about the light being too close on at least one of my many failed grows. I only have access, right now, to 3 diff LED grow lights and one MH lamp. The MH lamp heated the tent to over 100°F in about ten minutes, so I put that one away. My temp runs around 75-80°F with a humidity now of 32%. My lights are two feet above the seedlings. My new Root Riot method with seeds from a diff company seem to be working, now. Maybe.

56

Quite possibly? Not all seeds are viable either. If improperly stored seeds can die pretty quickly. If stored correctly they can germinate after 10 or 20 years pass by.

57

Plants are amazing living things. Some plants’ seeds will be viable after one hundred years, and others lose half of their germination rate every year. I am not sure where cannabis fits into that.

58

I had some seeds from the 70s getminate in the mid 90s after being stored in a black film canister. So rhey can be quite viable if properly stored.

59

I had a Girl Scout Cookie that was a month old and yours is bigger than what she was. Shw turned into a real monster. :+1:

60

That’s crazy. I wonder what your plant was doing that whole time. Waiting to grow until the time was right?