i’m not a lighting or electronics nerd so i couldn’t tell you what you need or if it would be safe to add a dimmer to your light. but from the looks of your plants i would say you don’t need to dim your light. or if you do, you can just raise it up for now. but it seems like your lights are ok.
regarding your plants, they look pretty good right now. i ran into watering issues myself and my plants have felt slower in growth because of it. also my initial transplants were rough, so my plants had to recover from that as well.
were you going to move them outside at some point? if so, once they’re happy outside, the sunlight should beat any led panel you can buy.
i feel like i’m having good success with my first grow, but i have also thrown a lot of money at my tools. my tent kit was $700 for example. but i got it in two days and everything works together quite nicely. the led panel is awesome and the controller allows me to get things dialed in more easily. considering your budget is limited i think you’re doing very awesome! that’s not even considering the soil and amendments i have bought.
regarding those ilgm nutes, they don’t seem to give a lot of info about what’s in the bottles, just their general n-p-k ratios and when you should use them. i also don’t recognize the bergman label but i’m a new grower, so maybe i just don’t know them.
since you’re growing in coco/soil, i would do a search on overgrow for other coco growers and see what they use. for my grow, i found a few og’ers using earthboxes and have tagged them for advice as well as reading through their journals. a search for bergman turns up some hits.
perhaps the ilgm coupon makes those nutes an attractive deal for you. i would just compare it to what standard nutes coco growers use and see if it’s a better deal.
have you looked into korean natural farming and making your own inputs and fertilizers yet? it doesn’t take a long time to make the fpj or ffj and cost is quite minimal (containers and brown sugar).
my guess is that even though your plants are technically 5 weeks old, their growth has been stunted (you’ve mentioned this) and so they may only actually be or feel like they’re 3 weeks old. but don’t worry, they’ll show you some sex soon enough, and then once they explode into their flowering stretch, you’ll be so busy and tired with maintaining them that you’ll wish you were back in the pre-sexed days. i know i sort of am, lol!
it looks like you’ve setup your outdoor plants very nicely for your environment. loving the hoop house you’ve created for them, as well as that leopard print fabric! those outdoor plants are gonna have to be fabulous now!
i agree with @Slick1, that little one might still surprise you. it looks like the leaf tips are burning though, so perhaps shade it or feed it some aloe?
This is the nutrient I got that I talked about above. Ilgm was kind enough to give me a coupon to cover the cost. I don’t want to judge to hard because I haven’t tried it yet but for $50 I thought there would be more, those small bags are like sample sizes. I will try it out an give my plants some next time I water
wish they worked
