Blue Dream 800W Induction Lights SOG

So being unable to get any reputable information for veg-bloom with induction lamps (especially in this forum...) I decided to do us all a favor and run a legit journal to test the light's potential in one square meter and shut up the nay-sayers while I'm at it. Or perhaps give them validation....

Pretty much same as my last grow except for the HiD lighting and no needed AC unit. Still a 4x4 tent with a 3x3 tray. Using 6" pots with about 2" of hydroton on the bottom with a 4" cube of rockwool above it and some rockwool croutons around the sides and topped with an algae cover. 2-400W adorn my canopy and following discussion with the people down at the shop I kept the lights two feet away during veg and one foot away during bloom... the plants just love them.

Questions and discussion always encouraged in my threads. However, negative nancy's can go ahead and hit their back button now as I won't be responding to fools. Arguing with a fool only proves there are two.



Pictures are all the way from transplant to 3 days into bloom (yesterday). 24 came rooted and the last one took forever to root, hence the empty slot in the earlier pics. Enjoy!

lookin green! nice man..flood and drain?

subbed for this one im very interested.!!
so whats the difference with the lights looks like a mix of mh and floro tubes lol

yah flood and drain with a 20gal res down below.

the difference in the light is the technology is much like florescent bulbs in that a gas inside the tube is excited and gives off light, as opposed to heating up an element that gives off light when it heats up. The metallic donuts on the end are polarized and give a positive and negative charge, respectively, charging the argon gas inside. Special phosphorous coating helps give off spectrum of light that the plants enjoy. All this is what I've managed to put together and as I understand it but if you want a more complete explanation go explore around the website. Those guys have put a lot of effort into compiling theoretical data in one place.

seems like a solid idea do you know what temp they are?? im guessing 6000k's by the color

Well they measure around 5200K but don't get hung up on the Kelvin reading with these bulbs. As I understand it, Kelvin simply indicates what color to the human eye you're going to perceive. The lower temperatures (such as HPS) give off a more orange or yellow glow while the higher temps (MH, etc...) appear more blue or white. If you're observing the color of the light the plant has no use for that light, most likely every bit of light you can see is barely in the absorption range of the plant. Temperature in the past has been a helpful guide in helping to know that mostly flowering-beneficial light is being given to the plant in flower and vegetative-beneficial light is being given to the plant in veg. These lights put off the entire spectrum (our human eyes can't see the really useful ranges put off) such that you never change the bulb from veg to bloom. The people selling the lights also claimed that changing the bulb like that is somewhat stressful on the plant and you don't experience that slight shocking that plants experience when you swap from MH--->HPS. I think the temperature (K) in these lights is also a product of what it is coated with, so the 2700K "flowering" bulbs are really the same as the 6500K bulbs for induction, they just paint one a nice color so you think you're doing better by spending twice as much. I could be completely mistaken but this is my understanding about Kelvin temp and these bulbs.

mcgyversmoke said:

im guessing 6000k's by the color

Click to expand...

oh and also i really messed with the exposure and white balance in my photos (I shoot in .raw) to get some of those upward looking shots to come out. they are waaaaaaaaaaay brighter than the pictures indicate.

Subbed! How close to the light is your temperature probe when its reading 81F?

Wow! I just got a price quote on 3 of these 400w lights. They want $2000 shipped.

Edit: I did some basic math, thats a good price, considering expenses over the course of 5 years to run three 400w hps/mh. Especially since a 400w inda-gro is supposed to be equal to 750w hps/mh. It would cost more over 5 years to run 3 600w hps/mh than the inda-gro lights. Its a great deal once you look farther than the price tag.

Wow this looks cool, I've never seen a lamp like that. Subbed.

Any chance we can see the effect over the course of the last two to three days? I'm digging the explorer spirit in here. Those plants are going to need some thinning at some point if this keeps on going the way it is.

When do you start 12/12? Are you using these lights to flower with?

My bluedream has thinner longer leaves.. yours seem to have more indica genetics.

I just flowered my BD at 10" on 1/13. So we are at about the same time on everything... im interested in seeing how yours do!!

Thank you. That looks great and this is the first place I've found any information confirming what the manufacture's state.

Thank you for making a journal of these lights

Do you need to to ventilate your tent the whole time lights are on or do these lights run pretty cool? 800w in that tent with 81* is pretty good

Now, do you expect or think you can pull off 1 gram per what which seems to be the target to shoot for in all the lighting technology

D.Gotti said:

Subbed! How close to the light is your temperature probe when its reading 81F?

Click to expand...

I keep my probe laying on the top of the canopy, sometimes it falls through but easy enough to set back up. Things are so stable in there I rarely even look at the thing to be honest.

Snow Crash said:

Any chance we can see the effect over the course of the last two to three days? I'm digging the explorer spirit in here. Those plants are going to need some thinning at some point if this keeps on going the way it is.

When do you start 12/12? Are you using these lights to flower with?

Click to expand...

The most recent pics in that first post were from the 17th and I just started my 12/12 photo period on Saturday the 15th. Trying to 'see the effect' over the past couple days, realize that this is their first week of 12/12 and they're going to be stretching a lot. If you notice in the filenames as you hover over my pics there is a 6 digit number in the middle like 011711 which stands for January 17, 2011. There are pics every couple days so you can see the effect of the lights in a vegetative state for about 3 weeks. And yes you flower with these lights. Just change the hours and leave the lamps and bulbs as they are, maybe move them a little closer.

As to the trimming that's tomorrow's job. I'm going to be following Al B. Fuct's advice and trim off the bottom 1/3 of anything but productive stems with promising tops after this first week of bloom and I'll come back through at the end of week three to clear up any leftovers. Though if you followed my last grow the undergrowth was just as thick as it is now and I just let it go and got tons of popcorn <shudder>. I thought that would be a great idea for more production in fact it just adds hours and lots of frustration to your trim time. I guess I'm saying I'm not as worried about mold because I keep the tent open with a whole lot of air moving through and around it, I'll be trimming to encourage more growth in the prime cola's and save me some headache come harvest.

D.Gotti said:

Edit: I did some basic math, thats a good price, considering expenses over the course of 5 years to run three 400w hps/mh. Especially since a 400w inda-gro is supposed to be equal to 750w hps/mh. It would cost more over 5 years to run 3 600w hps/mh than the inda-gro lights. Its a great deal once you look farther than the price tag.

Click to expand...

I was able to drive down and pick them up no problem and chatted with the guys at the shop for a while too. Once they found out I was recovering from leukemia and on disability they gave me a decent discount. They should break even dollar wise after a couple harvests compared to HID.

Cereall said:

Thank you for making a journal of these lights

Do you need to to ventilate your tent the whole time lights are on or do these lights run pretty cool? 800w in that tent with 81* is pretty good

Now, do you expect or think you can pull off 1 gram per what which seems to be the target to shoot for in all the lighting technology

Click to expand...

You're welcome it's my pleasure

I keep my tent ventillated very well. The bottom of the main door stays propped open and the side window is always open. I have a blower that I have about 10 feet away that is pointed right at the window and open door 24/7 and there is also a carbon filter with 4" Vortex fan just sitting in the back corner of the tent spinning 24/7. Also run three little clip on fans in the corners the carbon filter isn't that run 24/7. There's no air or special ventilation for the lights per se but the whole system is very well ventilated. If I close everything up when I had an exhaust fan ducted in and pull negative pressure on the tent and let it go it heats up to about 91-94 depending on the day.

If there were a way to separate the driver (aka ballast for induction lamps, the thing sitting on top of the lights) from the light that would really help with the heat in tent situations. Put the driver outside the tent and the lights inside. As I've said you can hold your hand against the bulb on the bottom of the setup no problem; the plants will even grow up into the lights if you let them. However, you can only hold your hand on the driver on top of the light for about 20seconds because it puts off so much heat.

As to yield I would be shooting for 1g/watt if I had a bigger grow area. My production will be in the grams/m^2 (grams per meter squared) as I'm just running a very tight SoG in a 1 m^2 tent. I'm also quite amateur; this is only my second grow and my first under 1000W MH/HPS in the same tent yielded around 250g so I don't think I can do much worse.... lol

Esteban Sanchez said:

My bluedream has thinner longer leaves.. yours seem to have more indica genetics.

I just flowered my BD at 10" on 1/13. So we are at about the same time on everything... im interested in seeing how yours do!!

Click to expand...

the guy who sold me these clones also sold me the last batch and when he saw my garden right before harvest he realized he gave me mostly hash plant clones so, frankly, I'm a little suspect at any genetics I get from the dude at this point. However, I know a couple of the plants came out were definitely blue dream because I'm quite familiar with the strain and just love thew few buds I got. All these plants are matching up with what I noticed from the few blue dream I had in there before so I'm confident it's all legit, he probably just selected a more indica-dominate phenotype for his Mother plants, which is kind of smart for those of us with limited height as blue dream is known to stretch quite a bit (2-3')

Oh also 2 of the plants are actually blue venom (blue dream x white widow?) because the guy that sold me didn't quite have 25 all blue dream. The wider leaf ones in a couple of my pictures might have been confusing you too I thought about today as I was trimming undergrowth. Here's a pic of one of the blue venom's.

Week 1 of bloom is done so I went through and cleared off the bottom 1/3 or so of any growth aside from production branches. Here's a couple before and after shots.

sideshot

one plant

another plant close up

before with all the plants in this morning and the try bottom after I emptied it all out

roots!!!!!