Indoor how close should my baby be to LED lights? Home made seed exeperiment

[dendrite007]

i seem to remember when i got these lights reading not to let the plants get to close to LED? i havnt grown for a while and cant remember if its safe to let them grow right up to the lights.

Details: 2x 180W LED panel drawing 90w with a 65w and 45w cfl lower down. plants started under (2x45w + 35w cfl for first month)

seeds are home made. i crossed a joint dr male with a kalashnikov blue acid femanised. then used a resulting male to cross back into a joint dr purple feminised and a kalashnikov blue acid fem same as used to make the male. in this pot there are two plants, on the left the purple cross, on the right the blue acid. plants about 4-5 weeks old. one week into flower. both female.

is it safe to let them keep stretching? the one on the left is obviousley much bigger and has been topped once but is still much larger. im worried if it keeps stretching i wont get light to the one on the right that is much smaller and was not topped.

any thoughts ? i think the led are 5w chips if i remember correct. and they feel very cool if i place my hand under the lights. so can i let the tops get to within a few inches ? thanks in advance. dont want to mess these up, not had a smoke for months

 

[dendrite007]

some more photos. sorry about small size. sony is refusing to connect to the laptop to copy the full size files so i uploaded to facebook then copied them from there.

 

[dendrite007]

other details. they are in a 5 lt pot in old biobiz soil thats now on its 4th use , mixed with 50% coir. . . i am feeding a mix of baby bio, biobiz grow and bloom, with cana mono trace, plant magic magnacal, and biobiz top max. will start adding a PK booster in a few weeks when buds start to develop.

cant think of anything else to add now.

any advice welcome.

 

[FullDuplex]

if you are seeing stretch the simple thing to do is either move the lights down or move the plants up to to the light.

LED can be too bright for the plants and you have to be careful. I run 300w panels and keep them 26 in over seedlings and for plants your size about 16-18 in above. Now they are a bit more powerful than yours but the concept is the same

 

[dendrite007]

if you are seeing stretch the simple thing to do is either move the lights down or move the plants up to to the light.

LED can be too bright for the plants and you have to be careful. I run 300w panels and keep them 26 in over seedlings and for plants your size about 16-18 in above. Now they are a bit more powerful than yours but the concept is the same

ok thanks. i thought that was the case but didnt want to under light them.... the tops of the larger one are only 6 inch away at the moment so will move them further away. ji was just worried they would not be getting enough light that far away and didnt want a bad crop. already been disapointed once as the first 2 i put in for xmas went male so no xmas smoke for me. thanks for the advice

 

[FullDuplex]

no problem sir, and the thing is watch them. IF the light is too close they will tell you. They will taco on you and that lets you know that they are too close. I had an issue where my main cola was way taller than the rest of the plant. If that is the case take the measurement from the next highest top. Cause if you go by the top main cola you will loose some light penetration.

 

[dendrite007]

i actually thought the tips were looking a bit odd, so have now moved them further away. i think the stretch is natural as they are just a week into flower so hope it means i will have nice big top cola.... it shouldnt be much of an issue if the LED dont reach the lower bud sites as i have two CFL lower down getting light into the lower leafs and bud sites so will just let the tops stretch up and if i need i can add more CFL lower down

 

[Passel]

Easy way to measure if its not too close - put your hand at the top of canopy. If you hold it there for 30 seconds and you don`t feel heat - its perfect.

 

[baj]

I would have to agree fully with @FullDuplex about the distances with led. I use a mixture of 5-6 different types and keeping the light 45-55 cm above young plants works well for me.
If you are worried about different heights just raise the shorter plant with a pot etc to keep them at the same height, this will help the bushier plants to fill out.
It can seem sometimes that led's hardly put out enough light for your girls but just try and read if they look happy and adjust as needed little bits at a time.
In deep flower I will have the lights at 20-25 above plant tops to help firm up the buds.
Personally I dont measure heat with the back of my hand as this has been unreliable for me with led's.
Good luck with the grow

 

[Passel]

Heat is heat, there is no different type of heat. If you didn`t feel heat, but your plants suffered, it wasn`t because of light, but nutrients/environment. Only high quality powerful LED light can actually burn plants. 95% of the time people use Chinese, which are simply not powerful enough to burn them.