PetFlora

Pr0fesseurs ground breaking work Led Without LEDs My First T5 Grow is on RIU. (Sorry, I do not know how to make the title into a link). In a few short months his thread has blossomed to over 150 pages, where fellow travelers have posted various invaluable information. The problem is accessing it. Hence the reason for this journal.

Feel free to post PERTINENT information, graphs, bulb compliments that work (and don't), where to buy, and especially late bloom photos, comparative yield results.

Myself, until 3 years ago, I had not grown in ~ 5 years. I was unaware of RIU, or any other online mj forums, About 3 years ago, I picked up a mj mag and was smitten by the full page ad and LED hype. I bought a UFO 90. As most of you know LED claims are far from reality, though they have gotten better. I became a student of LED lighting, and eventually distilled its' shortcomings to these:

* When the leds lose their strength (or burn out) they cannot be replaced. That's a bad investment
* PAR has a different requirement in veg vs flower (~60/40). You want more blue in veg, the opposite in flower, but LED panels are fixed- jack of all trades a master of none.
* Price v coverage. The average cost today to cover a 2 X 4 grow area with quality PAR 3 watt leds is ~ $1500.

Knowing my UFO 90 barely covered a 2 X 2 area, and that a led fixture that properly addressed PAR was out of price range, I went in search of an alternative. I came across a thread started by a caregiver using Quantum BB T5s with standard horticulture bulbs, and was blown away. I bought an 8 bulb + 8 each Quantum Grow and Bloom bulbs. This turned out not be a good move, as I was unaware of the spectrum graph of these bulbs, or how much that matters. My seedlings grew much better and faster than under my UFO, but due to heat stress, all 4 became males, so I pulled the grow.

BB features: It has 2 o/o switches. I can run 2-4--6 or 8 bulbs at a time, which saves considerable electricity when growing seedlings or clones. It also has built in reflectors with slots for heat to escape, keeping radiant heat to a minimum.

I came upon Pr0fesseurs thread, and what a thread it is: a must read. Lots of great people came out of the wood work and jumped into the fray. Several were looking to eliminate the heat from HID lamps, and the additional ducting and fans required + of course to better control the spectral balance and hopefully improve yield and quality. Some tall orders.

Being mostly pioneers, we all made our fair share of mistakes. I failed to follow my own knowledge regarding nute ppms and hydro. My monster plant was sucking ~ a gallon of nutes/water a day, leaving a high concentration in the rez (1900+). Due to the high ppms + flooding every 45 minutes, basically I cooked the plants/buds from the inside out. I flushed to no avail, and harvested, but the plant shriveled down to half of what it was pre- over nuting. It's curing now.

OK guys, you can take it from here