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Ok so recently I decided I need more light in my tent. So decided to get prices for lights. Cheapest was R4500. It was elg~240 driver and bridgelux eb 2nd gen strips. Fuckit build one myself. Driver HLG~240H~20A = R 1175.11 Strips Bridgelux EB 2nd Gen 56cm - 12 x R82.42 = R 989.04 Aluminum strips = R450 Plug, Wire, wago connectore and electrical cable = R300 IMPORT COSTS = R 430 TOTAL COST = R 3344.15 If you count the rope rachets its another R240

I just deleted my BidorBuy and Takealot account as this habit of offering products without local stock gets a bit annoying. I look in general always for local stock, if it is not totally in a hilarious price range. But when I get 2 weeks, or more, delivery time, I started to cancel the orders right away. I can order from China myself. As local stock seems to shrink rather fast.. annoyingly.. I thought I write a few lines to import.. as when you go look outside, you can choose from several options of the same product and not just one they offer in SA. With any order the payment process offers a shipping note to add. To make things way more speedy, add your SA ID and your contact phone number there and add the comment For private use, not retail! Will go through customs rather without hassle and the courier has your direct contact, if the China trader messed that part up. I never ever had any Credit Card issues with a Chinese company/trader.. and I ordered quite a lot from that area. Hobbyking, Alibaba, Aliexpress.. zero troubles, is more complicated to chat with the translated Chinese.. but i always got what I ordered. Don't forget the tell them at the end to please make the customs bill to the % you like it to be.. I take in general 50% to 80% off.. less customs.. they grab shameful amounts charging 50% import tax.. is just asking to get cheated on. That brings me to the list of couriers I can recommend.. but don't get me wrong, they are not perfect but... with the added information in the shipment, those works the smoothest (might swap due to local crew incompetence ^^) Cape Town area I rank em like that: 1 DHL 2 UPS 3 Aramex .. there is a gap.. Fedex is very incompetent handling anything, contacts to payments 4 Fedex another gap.. nothing is even close as bad as post office.. i wouldn't even call that a mail service anymore 5 EMS (Post Office) DHL and UPS have working invoice systems in place for CC payment, great contact and fast. Aramex i put before Fedex as their computer system at least works. Fedex is great till it hits SA.. they don't check for payments or even try to contact you. Additional their phone system is very unstable and you need several calls. They are never over worked (fast response) but your line gets cut in general when they want to forward you. Not one try they succeeded.. I had to call in a few times. So Fedex only if you want to endure the full load. EMS with Post Office termination is not really an option, except you have a lot of time to wait, my record, got a parcel after 8 months of shipping.. and lost quite some parcels too, avoid EMS. The good news.. if you import yourself, you get your stuff the cheapest possible. I always say support local.. but then again.. if you order yourself and not over a SA third person, will be faster and cheaper. If I get my stuff within 5 days.. I take it local.. anything else, cancel, I order myself. BidorBuy account I closed as I made 3 orders, and only growguru.co.za had local stock, rest wanted to let me wait 20+ days. When I went shopping for the same product outside, I got double the amount of the product and on express shipping.. so faster.. 5-7 days (in this case 5m RAW rolling paper, 48 of them ^^, not even a dollar a piece, 730R for the papers, going to my planetexpress storage.. I order more stuff to reduce shipping cost ^^). If you run into products "they" don't send to SA.. you can always get a warehouse or shipping service to work around. You have those issues more in US/Europe.. China/Hong Kong ships to SA ^^ For the USA/Europe www.planetexpress.com works very nice (you can't repack seeds!! keep that in mind) rest, you can collect also parcels for 45 days and ship in one parcel.. less shipping fees, pays back rather fast, if you have a few things to order. This premium service is 50$ a year or you can also just take it for one big batch and take the service just for a month. With the saved shipping fees.. always pays back. Just for one parcel.. is just a little additional cost but you get your stuff shipped to SA, have 2 parcels combined and the fee for planetexpress is paid and you saved some. Just select the warehouse depending where you need it. California for the US and UK for Europe. If people run local stock.. i will always order there first (as mentioned.. if the price is reasonable) but I am not supporting people just doing the order them self and add 100-200% on top.. i hate wasting my money ^^ If you stick a bit to the same courier.. you have the numbers and websites you need bookmarked, importing yourself as a private person isn't as complicated and frustrating as most think. Just think ahead and put the information needed on the shipping yourself. If nobody needs to contact you, you will be amazed how fast it can go. US or China to SA.. DHL or UPS does it in 5 - 7 days and not a month like those order "reheaters" offer for more expensive in general. Support people running local stock.. rest be smart. Hope it helped somebody

2nd winter run is coming to an end. 1st pic, Major General Banner has some rock hard budz just like they discribe. 2nd. Blunicorn day 66. 3rd OG Kush and Gorilla Zkittles 4th. GTH fading fast

Day 55, almost 8 weeks into flowering...... Goeie naand mense! It was a good week for them, however they got some leave tip burn or something, it might be the Fire Juice that is gave at just over 3ml/L and the max dose is 2ml/L. Besides that they had the same feeding as the previous week. The GSC is becoming much bigger and denser this week. OKC is doing her thing slowly now as with the Sapphire OG. Most thricomes are still clear, il say 90% clear still. This forum and some other growers I met via 420 has really helped me alot with my growing, still loads to learn tho [emoji847] Sent from my F5321 using Tapatalk

So after a friend of mine wanted to buy a 100w cob grow light for 3.5k I decided to give him a hand and I built him a 2k strip light. 123w light. Driver HLG~120H~C1050B =R846.11 Bridgelux eb gen 2 strips 6x R82.41 = R494.46 Aluminim strips R200 Wire plug and wagos and other bits R220 Import costs R230 +- R2000

My goal is always to reach 1000g per square meter. But also try to reduce the wattage used. My personal record stands on 2.45g per watt. Is not one or the other, i measure both to keep track if i move in the right direction. Friend just pulled 200g from a amnesia haze auto in switzerland... hehehe i never reached that.. time to up my game

Just over 11 weeks now. Managed to get see the trichomes up close and personal. It looks like we got another 1 or 2 weeks. Was planning on harvesting the most purple pheno this weekend however I could only manage to find about 5 amber trichomes. Its been a bit of a bumpy ending and it seems they going to have to roll with the punches for a few more days. By now you can imagine the smells of dreams i'm tormented with everyday. Almost there...

My last autoflower run I got 365g off 3 small plants under a 240w QB running at 75%. I reckon had i utilized the space correctly, i woulda gotten more. Lighting is a huge factor in your tent, but i think your overall environment is more important. Optimal conditions is what cranks out the yield in my case. I've noticed the differences when growing in different seasons. I'm with @Ill_Evan, quality over quantity.

I am so sick of people just making money out of the grow community. And I am getting the feeling there is a couple of people that is feeling the same. I want more people to grow and I just feel that for some people the investment is to big.

Awsome neat slick build there brother. I love it. Spelling

I think I might actually build this for next winter.

If any one feels that they are able to do this please see the following article. https://ledgardener.com/diy-led-strip-build-designs-samsung-bridgelux/

Wow. Just wow. Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

I was thinking about this topic this week again, I did a RDWC grow and then a few coco/perlite grows with GH and Greenhouse powder nutes and then Living soil, sooo when I started with the soil I had abit of growing experience behind me. The soil was super easy because its just plain water that needs to be used. I have a system now where I use the FF Premium Classic in 1L tubs for rooted cutting for 3-4 weeks with just water and then I use the FF Custom Crafted Soil when reporting into bigger pots and that soil can just be watered till harvest time, no ammendments needed. I have used@SkunkPharm soil and the Orgasoil mix from Jamie 's, they all very simular and I can recommend any of them. Took some coco/perlite/peat moss mix and added that soil amendment from Jamie's ( at 100ml/L of substrate) and trying that on next run. But I haven't tried any other cheaper soil or compost mix from a nursery yet, I was advised against [emoji28]. All the tried and tested soils cost between R170-220 a bag. Cost per plant Soil - R200 Pot - R100 Plant/seed - R200 Electricity - [emoji2369][emoji23] +- R500 to harvest between 40-100g is not bad. Sent from my F5321 using Tapatalk

Thanks for the help getting to this point everyone. Proper seeds are ordered and will be delivered soon. Following advice from @Prom I will start growing those at the end of this month. In the meantime I decided to pop some bag seeds to do a trial run. The plan is to grow them for a month in some homemade canna soil I found at nursery not far from my flat according to a google search. I put their details in my Post about Durban supplies. I'll attach a pic . Checked this morning and 3 had sprouted already. 1 had a taproot that was already around 1cm long. Maybe there is something to this full moon thing after all! Moved the 3 sprouts into a seedling tray and watered well. The other 3 are back on the modem. Little tray of joy Settling in on the windowsill till the weather settles

Hey there guys, Thought I'd drop this here so long... Please let met know what you guys think: This forms part of the main Dutch Passion Auto Daiquiri Lime Grow Series (Forum Grow Report and YouTube Grow Series). I will be building this forum topic as I get time, so just sharing the video for now as I'm quite busy with my full time job, etc. I'll post some finer details if anyone is interested and can post some decent quality copies of the photos in the video for those interested in this sort of thing (DIY light building/tinkering with electronics). Hope you guys have a great weekend! Peace.

With the FF Green bag you need nutes but not with the FF Custom Craft, but you can add nutes in flower like the Fire Juice or Biobizz Bloom. I have used it with out nutes and end result was acceptable. Sent from my F5321 using Tapatalk

Looks great bro.

Fedex is a total face palm.. you call in for the invoice.. DHL just send me that by them self, containing the EFT information or link for electronic CC payment. Anyhow.. Fedex.. then you call in again as you want to pay by card. As in the payment confirmation was Ref for Fedex, the tracking number. I expected this to be a automated process. I was wrong.. after a complain 4 days after my payment, they decided to say thank you for the payment. Tracker didn't move for another 72 hours.. on a Express Parcel I stick to DHL and UPS.. and in emergencies Aramex.. but Fedex SA is like Post Office OK, not the same same.. but they try very hard to reach that low level.

Sweet write up @Prom! Thank you for this, you really did put it all together very nicely

Thanks man, wish I had some of this knowledge before I ordered an 240w QB from Alibaba and used FedEx. The packaged arrived within 5days but took 3 weeks for FedEx to clear it with customs after numerous calls and phone calls being cut(just like you mentioned) The customs fees tip is a good one. I asked for my fee to be made less luckily so the 50% charge wasn't too bad considering what it could of be.

I've seen this on hydrobiz, didn't expect them to be local though, so that's a plus, just looking at the packaging I thought it was imported premium An extra 20/50 bucks for proper organic not bad at all in my book, especially if you only need a bag or two Gonna post some pics of the grow later

I'm not actually sure, I imagine the trichome won't mature if its revegging - or if it does mature, may be at a much lower rate. Perhaps someone else would chime in here and confirm. If there are lots of milky, you could chop it still I guess, if you don't want to wait. Better than just clear trichs.

This is true, one could base their outdoor grow on the size of the pot I guess. Although light won't really work, also space wise is a bit tricky to measure the space the plant is using outdoors. But you are right, there certainly are some measurements one could use.

I will be worth the wait. Looking lovely.

A lot of the soils which are used for cannabis contain some coco and perlite too. When you start adding amendments to coco, I feel it starts to become a soil and isn't really coco anymore. The perk and benefit to coco is the fact that its inert, it gives you full control over what you feed your plants. The way it retains water and air is also fantastic. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

I'd say do a bit of defol..

@Psylecta, I guess there’s nothing wrong with trying something new as long as you're prepared to pay the school fees ;). I do experiment myself quite a bit. Thinking out of the box is how new things get invented. However one needs to prepare for possible failure. You mentioned you are going to try Freedom Farms next. I never went wrong with their soil. However I only recently found out Jamie's has got a soilmix too. It's slightly more expensive but the ingedrients used seem unique to me. I spoke to him about it and it seems they really put a lot of research into their stuff. I just mention it as I never saw anyone on here talking about it or trying it. https://www.jamiesgardenshop.co.za/shop/orgasoilux-potting-soil-premium-living-earth-blend-30l/ Has anyone tried this soil already? If so how did it work for you?

So I ventured into the land of LST. Bent the main stem 90 degrees and the plant has gone ballistic. What's the next step or should I not fcuk around? Sent from my DRA-LX5 using Tapatalk

If it's harvested now, the trichomes likely won't be mature. Check how much Amber, milky and clear trichomes are on the plant. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

An extended dark period of only a few hours is unlikely to affect them much. I would take them outside and then tomorrow correct it and ensure you are consist with it. Although the hermie trait is more prominent in some strains then others, some are just more sensitive.

Have to add to this list... St Clements Nursery Musgrave https://stclements-nursery.business.site/ Stock: Basic pots Their own soil (apparently very popular with locals) One or two other surprises... PM for deets dudes Got a 5l of their soil and 6 x 10cm smalls pots to grow out my pilot "bag" seed demo grow. Seems light and fluffy. Will post pics. Has bark (orchid) which I wasnt that keen on but was convinced to try... All in all cost was R75. They also apparently mix their own nutes which are available. Price seemed reasonable... may give it a run on the bag seed grow and see how it does Highly recommend a pit stop if nearby. Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

Marigold companion flowering

Look for fish mix, if you want to use just one of both. Then get a bottle of melasses too from your grow shop and mix your own Grow... 750ml fish mix and 250ml melasses... and you have Biobizz Grow. Stick to the light mix table, not the FF table... that one demands to use bio heaven or you run into troubles. I can send you a beefed up feeding table for your 10 weeks sour diesel, put those out second week Nov. Use the 12 week table, standard, on the ww3, beginning Nov (easy week calculation, 1. Nov). I use 10 liter pots for autos, i let the 10 week bubbles go into week 15, very late harvest. Autos dont go as root crazy... also means they handle less good wind. I am always amazed how small the root work is when you empty the pots. Pulled one out gentle... that is a 10 liter pot and a 14 week old auto

Day 18. Other than the one seed that didn't make it the remaining two seem to be doing their job. Minimal water as and when needed then roughly 10 hours outdoors and 8 hours under the lights. I've planted another seed, #4. This time no kitchen paper etc. Into water last Friday, into soil the Sunday and broke soil Tuesday. 10 days old now. I'm not adding nutrients at the moment, still not sure if I will. Off topic. Think I'm in trouble with the missus. She got home yesterday and I'd comandered and partitioned a 2m x 2m section of the garage. Sent from my DRA-LX5 using Tapatalk

Some nice colours coming out. 1st and 4th pic GTH 2nd pic gorilla zkittles barneys farm 3rd pic Major General Banner from GSR seeds 5th and 6th pic Blunicorn from in house

Howdy Greenies [emoji41] Day 40 into flowering and I'm happy with how the girls are enjoying themselves. No issues and my Sonoff for humidity is helping, no PM yet as per previous grows. The smell of the OKC is amazing, buds are dense and loads of thricomes. GSC is big but not as dense yet. Sapphire OG is also dense and I like the lighter brighter green she shows. Temps drop to 12 one night when I forgot to readjust the Sonoff higher [emoji39]. Sent from my F5321 using Tapatalk

I totally agree with this statement @PsyCLown. At least when it comes to mixing the soil yourself. On the other hand starting to grow with some good premixed soil like for example FF soil plus using the biobizz range is pretty much fool proof (if you stick to the feeding table). Beginner growers tend to try and invent a new wheel instead of sticking to proven grow technics. Or they try to safe and buy crappy soil from the nursery around the corner. IMO these are big contributing factors why some beginners struggle with their soil grow.

This doesn't really apply to me outdoors. There are also some other paramaters for outdoor growers, such as grams per month, if you grow perpetually. Another one to consider is the volume of soil. Grams per litre.

At the moment I am using grams per watt, just cause. I haven't really thought about it since learning how to grow. The gold standard that's usually plastered everywhere is to achieve a gram per watt, but I find myself now trying to achieve awesome buds over quantity, so I haven't paid much attention to it. When I gear myself towards quantity, most likely from my next grow onwards, I'd probably start using gram per square meter. I'd like to fully utilise my space so it feels like the right "gauge" to use. I'm easy mahn

Ja pretty much. Listened to a pod cast where they had clakamascoot on and he was taking these nutrient companies appart. Giving cheap alternatives to expensive nutrient lines. I guess the older you get the less your care about what you say. Would love to get neem meal in this country so that I could try his soil mix.

Also this week, will start cutting lower small branches slowly during this week Sent from my F5321 using Tapatalk

And he got the "better" light as replacement for the 4 QB 288 board lamp he ordered.. is a LED Bar Lamp so those lights are better then QBs. I learn a lot from those dudes... I think I stick with my lamps and will not switch I would have demanded to get the 4 QB Lamp originally ordered.. a lot more for your money hehehe I cross this topic off and put a ignore on their URL, not touching that store myself.

We come to the point, where people write they know what they do and researched.. but I just had a quick look over their website and checked the LED lights. Lets quickly Quote the website: We at Online Grow Shop have researched far and wide to make sure that we offer the new and up and coming South African Growers market the top of the range in both HID and LED grow lights. Lets jump in the LED selection and that REALLY made my head shake!!!! https://www.onlinegrowshop.co.za/product/300w-led-quantum-board-v3-with-additional-red-and-uv/ I post the link... since when in this corner of the Universe is UV part of PAR? What a waste of energy is that?!?! No research.. also didn't found a PPFD from any of the lamps they build and sell. How do they know distance to hang for the stages?? I do not see any research at all... sorry.. just importing kits and selling them as top notch grow lights. Hehehe still giggle, PAR stops at 400nm, Hombres Light can hurt your plants and yield. After those guys, you have to figure that out yourself. Just writing it on your website, doesn't mean you know what you do..

Shame, no, not at all, not my intention. They are offering you the light here, right now and with their personal backup and service. That's where they drop the ball in my opinion, otherwise the guy who didnt want to import or make his own or do research, could just get his light.

Boss, rather go straight to @growopz and get his light, his are manufactured for him, with Samsung latest chips, and he actually knows so much about the technology, boards are made with quality thickness material and wont burn out or cause kak. That's my 2c I have 2 of his lights and my next light is already on the list with him. I can send you the link too, as I am here to help and you must be happy. https://m.alibaba.com/product/62213335398/Kingbrite-480W-LED-Strip-Light-Samsung.html

Nice profit on those lamps.. I should go into the grow light business ^^ I got my QBs for a 1.2x1.2 area for 7500...self import.. and I screwed the cables together myself.. and those boards are with Heat Sink, H version diode. 5.500 for screwing a lamp together in 10 mins.. not shabby. Looks like they spend the time after the lamp is done with drinking.. as they can't spend it on customer care.. there is NADA. Still nothing.. no lamp, no refund.. What PPFD foot print do they give you for the lamp?

People dont seem to grasp communication, and promise what they cant deliver. Just be upfront, say how it is, and others will respect that and you for doing so... You make a promise and dont deliver, it doesn't reflect well. So many people want work or opportunity to make a living, and others are nonchalant about their current. Flippin SAD

On my friends side... no refund, no lamp.. just more emails to say sorry. Time just passes.. they ruined him a grow with their lies and moron circus, selfish little pricks. If nothing is coming this week, Police gets involved. Fun is over.. I actually start to get mad now.. how can you not be able to do what you promise for 2 weeks??? God damn liars... sorry.. supporting those dudes is just not good for the grow community.. like Cannabist.. the name is gone by now.