100 wat LED year two

[MrFancyPlants]

I finally brought the ficus in since I don't see night time temperatures getting back into the 60's for a while. I am pleased w the development over the summer.

I am still debating keeping the olive, bay leaf, winter jasmine, trident? And privet? In the shed for a partial dormancy w t5 to keep them company. I'll wait unit it is getting closer to freezing to decide, but I would appreciate some input.

 

[MidMichBonsai]

Do you have any way to get circulation to those in the tank? You will likely want some type of air movement or at least remove the lid regularly to facilitate that.

Best,
Dan

 

[MrFancyPlants]

I do have a USB CPU fan, in the 15G tank, plugged into a wall wart and you are right that it makes a huge difference. Last year I didn't have it at first and some leaves would scorch due to hot spots from the two 50w LEDs and I had some issues with mildew or mold, but once I added in the tiny fan everything looked a lot healthier. Along with air distribution, it also helped distribute the heat towards the bottom of the tank where the roots can draw some extra energy.
And the 4x2' t5 is open to the air on a stand. I don't get nearly as aggressive growth there, but the larger plants seem to do better with a little more space.

Thanks for checking out my setup,
David

 

[MidMichBonsai]

Right on. I didn't see the fan tucked behind your pots there. I'm glad you found something that works well for you.

Thanks for sharing!

Best,
Dan

 

[MrFancyPlants]

Lots of new growth with less than two days in the tank. I did see a few spider mites already, but hopefully the humidity will keep them at bay. I also saw some very small spiders (larger than the mites) so I am going to avoid the nuclear option until I see signs of damage on the new growth. I was curious if the winter generally took controlled spider mites outside.

 

[Redwood Ryan]

Lots of new growth with less than two days in the tank. I did see a few spider mites already, but hopefully the humidity will keep them at bay. I also saw some very small spiders (larger than the mites) so I am going to avoid the nuclear option until I see signs of damage on the new growth.i was curious if the winter generally took controlled spider mites outside.

View attachment 42771

I would be careful, the verdict isn't out yet on whether or not the mites love humidity or loathe it. They do hate the cold, but we're talking cold cold, not weather we're experiencing right now.

 

[Redwood Ryan]

How are the LED's working for you David?

 

[MrFancyPlants]

During the summer I put the tropicals out to pasture.. well outside anyways so I don't have any big updates on the LEDs, but they did perform quite well under the LEDs through the winter. There was a vacation induced drought that caused me to lose a few branches, but everything recovered except for an olive that I think I let freeze to hard in the shed before I brought it in.

It is hard to keep all the variables in check to do a scientific comparison but willow leaf figs in particular put on more growth when they are in the LED tank than when they are outside in the sun. This could also be effected by the increased heat, humidity and/or a more judicious fertilization schedule.

These flood lights don't have any fans to cool the chips so the chip lifespan is brought down a fair amount. I am running the two chips in parallel, which is also a no-no, so I did replace the 50 watt chips with 100 watt chips(still getting 50 watts of power) when one burned out. The chips are cheap and I like tinkering so I don't mind replacing them every once in a while. At some point I want to get a RGB chip and disconnect the Green portion in order to isolate the photo synthetic output of the chip. Then I could theoretically bring down the power going to the chips to keep them cooler while still providing the same amount of fuel for the chlorophyll.

My other project involved retrofitting a stylized hurricane lamp with a cpu cooler and 50 watt chip and that worked great for a while until I brought it to a home and garden show my bonsai club had a table at. The jostling in transport must have loosened the thermal compound on the chip so that the day after I got back, the chip fell off the cooler and over heated, burning out the chip. Next time I'll use thermal cement since with the fan the lifespan of the chip would be 10+ years.