LED Without LEDs -My First T5 Grow

@ pet flora:

shawn from quantum is a friend of ours and i was gonna bug him a little bit about how i was reading complaints about his company and before i got a chance to, he was like "let me guess, it's about putting the spectrum graph on the wp, right?"

he wanted me to let you know he's not ignoring you, he's just waaaaaay behind on all sorts of stuff (including getting on his proofreader to make the accompanying information to the bulb info 'publishing quality'). he and his family are in the process of moving to another country (they're literally leaving tomorrow) so he's been pre-occupied by that for the last month or so and sends his apologies. says he didn't expect the graph thing to take so damn long, and that he'll be back in office on the 3rd.

[/threadjack] sorry pr0f. you have done what i haven't managed to do in *years*; you've gotten my man sincerely interested in blue-spectrum fluoros. i can't even begin to tell you how exciting that is.

mellokitty said:

@ pet flora:

shawn from quantum is a friend of ours and i was gonna bug him a little bit about how i was reading complaints about his company and before i got a chance to, he was like "let me guess, it's about putting the spectrum graph on the wp, right?"

he wanted me to let you know he's not ignoring you, he's just waaaaaay behind on all sorts of stuff (including getting on his proofreader to make the accompanying information to the bulb info 'publishing quality'). he and his family are in the process of moving to another country (they're literally leaving tomorrow) so he's been pre-occupied by that for the last month or so and sends his apologies. says he didn't expect the graph thing to take so damn long, and that he'll be back in office on the 3rd.

[/threadjack] sorry pr0f. you have done what i haven't managed to do in *years*; you've gotten my man sincerely interested in blue-spectrum fluoros. i can't even begin to tell you how exciting that is.

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Well I think its something that IS very interesting and WHY IN THE WORLD no one but me has jumped head first into this? I now think that With the proper "tweaking" we can find that "Magic Light Soup" in T5 bulbs and grow beyond our Wildest Dreams!

I am trying to raise some $$ for another lamp and put them vertically on either side of the plants kind of like a light box!

(sorry if i'm repeating myself here, i can't remember who i've told this story to): i saw some side-by-side 'cherry bomb' a number of years back where buddy was supplementing half of his hps room with those blue lights you see in nail salons. apparently they all started as clones taken in the same batch off the same mom, but when they finished up almost didn't even look like the same *strain.
i've been prattling on about this for years, in fact when we upgraded our room i even mentioned this to the guys at quantum, but i guess my visual men respond better to pictures than anecdote.

so thank you again.

and the 'pseudo light box' sounds awesome!

No problem... there is a paper that shows the effects on ACTINIC light with plants.. it in my grow journal...called the facts about green light great read kinda dry but it explains in detail that actinic light and green light have tremendous effects on plant growth.. So much so that the amout of "blue" that a HID puts out can be completely replaced by Blue t5 and achieve the same results! w/w If you look at the spectrograph on HID the largest spike on ALL HID is the Infra red band HEAT by 3:1 so in essence the bulb generates 3x more HEAT than light... Just sayin... if i had 1000W of T5 actinic vs HPS im pretty sure where my money would go! ITS all about PAR

pr0fesseur said:

No problem... there is a paper that shows the effects on ACTINIC light with plants.. it in my grow journal...called the facts about green light great read kinda dry but it explains in detail that actinic light and green light have tremendous effects on plant growth.. So much so that the amout of "blue" that a HID puts out can be completely replaced by Blue t5 and achieve the same results! w/w If you look at the spectrograph on HID the largest spike on ALL HID is the Infra red band HEAT by 3:1 so in essence the bulb generates 3x more HEAT than light... Just sayin... if i had 1000W of T5 actinic vs HPS im pretty sure where my money would go! ITS all about PAR

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So are you saying that t5 actinic and t5 blue spec. lights would be the best combo?

mattman said:

So are you saying that t5 actinic and t5 blue spec. lights would be the best combo?

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Actinic IS blue... more precisely Actinic is the FAR blue range
The first line in WIKIPEDIA
"Actinic light is either light that affects photographic film,[1] or will facilitate photosynthesis or stimulate light sensitive species"

There are different Actinic bulbs out on the market. And it IS kind of intimidating on which one to buy. But there are some factors we should take into account!!!
First Lets look at Spectrum. without too much explaination ill show you some pictures. the First pic is the "Super Actinic" These bulbs are ALL a DEEP BLUE color and while they look cool really do not have a good PAR value. There are Better Bulbs to Stimulate plant Growth.

The second Picture is the Bulbs that i call 450's(actinic Plus). These bulbs usually have a spike @420nm and an arch @450nm

From here we move onto the "Special" Actinic These vary by as many combinations as there are companies that make them and most DAYLIGHT bulbs follow this model. A large majority of bulbs from 20000K
to 12000K
After 12000K the lights start to produce more yellow..~@549nm and ~@610 More of the light your eyes see as white! "Cool White" then the color trickles down lower and more "warm White" by adding more of these colors and less blue...

I would stay away from the "Special" Actinics like the plague and here's why. By adding these Unnecessary bands of light the bulb is not producing bands of "useful" light when other bulbs produce a large majority in a single agea and greater PAR.
For example
The typical "Bloom" bulb Notice not that much going on, yeah they work.. but look at my Red and my *PURPLE*
By mixing these various bulbs we can more accurately target the plants needs By Providing More "Usable" light i dont waste Money on heating due to inefficiency in the lamp to produce the proper spectrum.. T5 has MASSIVE potential..you can get it REALLY close to the plants and it has GREAT penetration with the "Right" light!





BTW i WILL journal this post if anyone misses it. I


Did everyone miss this but me? I thought i would be amongst MANY users growing like this... :/ turns out its only ME

Okay, pro

After reading that post, I understand what you are saying, but from your experience so far... how many of each bulb and ratios would you use for growth from veg to flower. I want to known each and every detail. I want to know which bulb, which company, how many.

Your thread has been extremely useful... I too have come to the conclusion that there is large amount of science behind this, and I think you are doing a excellent job at documenting your results and explaining them wonderfully.

Also, I'm reading through the article you provided, very interesting.

mattman said:

Okay, pro

After reading that post, I understand what you are saying, but from your experience so far... how many of each bulb and ratios would you use for growth from veg to flower. I want to known each and every detail. I want to know which bulb, which company, how many.

Your thread has been extremely useful... I too have come to the conclusion that there is large amount of science behind this, and I think you are doing a excellent job at documenting your results and explaining them wonderfully.

Also, I'm reading through the article you provided, very interesting.

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Thanks for your support.

Well you can see the bulbs i have in my sig minus the ati pro color... that one is discontinued.. I have One of the 454 2 Fuji purple 1 super actinic 2 Blue+ and have recently gotten some 22K for my next switch out..and i have 3 of the RED SUN by UVL

Professor I have a question, after reading through the journal, I think I am understanding that a 2/1 ratio of red/blue light keeps the plant running at optimal condition with minimal heat. So, do you think a 1red-1blue-1red-1purple-1blue-1red would be a good order to have the lights? I was thinking that they would need to be lined up so that the same wavelengths are making it to a larger surface area of the plant.

for 6 lamps 3 red is too much...
purple blue red purple blue red
or
purple red blue purple red blue
if your vegging you dontt need red an should have a 22K or 454 instead of the red...

pr0fesseur said:

for 6 lamps 3 red is too much...
purple blue red purple blue red
or
purple red blue purple red blue
if your vegging you dontt need red an should have a 22K or 454 instead of the red...

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I don't recall in the article where it stated that red wasnt necessary for veg. Just said 50% blue for plant growth.

WOW I currently grow with LED's And cfl's
But like I said wow, I like the complete break down of your'e knowledge especially the external link to the oxford journals.Cant say more I would love to try this.

mattman said:

I don't recall in the article where it stated that red wasnt necessary for veg. Just said 50% blue for plant growth.

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Let me rephrase
I dont think the RED SUN Bulbs should be used in VEG the Fiji Purple bulbs are 50% red....so using the red bulbs you have a 70/30 mix red /blue. it would better suit you to use a 454 or 22K bulbs to add a better spectra for vegging.

fatalack said:

WOW I currently grow with LED's And cfl's
But like I said wow, I like the complete break down of your'e knowledge especially the external link to the oxford journals.Cant say more I would love to try this.

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Thsnks!
Like I have stated previously I'm here to Experiment, document and enlighten.. I'm not shoving anything down any ones throat, or saying my grow is in anyway better. Just using FACT based analysis and research to my advantage. Im taking another PROVEN technology and applying it to a "similar" field... Seems like a no brainer to me! Thanks for following along and please feel free to contribute.

pr0fesseur said:

Any pics? I would love to see.. I supercrop after pinching twice.. four main stems then supercrop down like arms let them go and she'll sprout up! Thats how i did my Original crop (God Bud). Have you ever revegged or chopped but leaving all the popcorn letting it re-ripen? i usually let a good producer "finish" after a few more weeks shell put out one more time...

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Prof, yes indeed I have revegged a couple of plants. I did it with an arjan's haze after she was chopped and from sannies seeds I am currently growing a shackzilla and a herijuana x big white. I took some cuttings three weeks into flower, revegged them and now they have a few more weeks to go, well at least the herijuana x big white does, the shackzilla will take longer it's a sativa dominant strain. I have only topped one or two plants since I've been growing which is a couple of years now. Generally I will fim a plant to slow it down but rarely top them. I didn't care for fimming since I don't seem to get it right so instead I've started supercropping. The morning glory and my psycho killer and deep psycho, after supercropping, I tie down the main stem to keep it from popping back up overnight. It also moves the top over to the side of the container allowing more light to penetrate into the plant.

These are some pics of my morning glory taken last week. One or two of the pics are from under the plant looking into the middle which is just slap full of bud. I'll post up some pics after the chop which I hope will be this weekend.

nice thread.keep the updates comeing i really want to see the outcome.

Hi there, pr0fessuer- just wanted to let you know that this thread right here is the reason I joined this community. While I have been entrenched in the culture for quite some time and have worked in the industry on a couple different levels, I am ready to take that next step and start growing (for my own personal use). I like that you take a decidedly scientific approach to your decision making processes when it comes to equipment choices as well as cultivation techniques. Looking forward to seeing more as I have already learned valuable stuff from this thread alone. This is my first ever post here, and I intend on divng in head first. Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate your angle on things.

SOCALRP said:

Hi there, pr0fessuer- just wanted to let you know that this thread right here is the reason I joined this community. While I have been entrenched in the culture for quite some time and have worked in the industry on a couple different levels, I am ready to take that next step and start growing (for my own personal use). I like that you take a decidedly scientific approach to your decision making processes when it comes to equipment choices as well as cultivation techniques. Looking forward to seeing more as I have already learned valuable stuff from this thread alone. This is my first ever post here, and I intend on divng in head first. Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate your angle on things.

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Thanks it means A LOT to me that others become excited and enlightened by my research. Stay tuned more to come!

I actually owned an aquarium store for several years, and was a huge T5 fan back then and brought that with me to this hobby. I have several bulbs and just for a test purpose went and put in 1 actinic 420-460nm bulb in my t5 light that I use for veg. I am curious as to how well the plants react to this bulb, i would expect to see some movement within 48 hours at the the plants around it and growth of plants directly under it. I have 7 plants directly under it and are for most part even height with the majority of the 28 plants. I will be looking for plants movement towards that bulb that are on either side and look at growth of the plants directly underneith it. all these plants are about 6" tall. its presently 10pm when I placed the bulb in the slot, will make first post on if any changes about that time tomorrow night.

reverof said:

I actually owned an aquarium store for several years, and was a huge T5 fan back then and brought that with me to this hobby. I have several bulbs and just for a test purpose went and put in 1 actinic 420-460nm bulb in my t5 light that I use for veg. I am curious as to how well the plants react to this bulb, i would expect to see some movement within 48 hours at the the plants around it and growth of plants directly under it. I have 7 plants directly under it and are for most part even height with the majority of the 28 plants. I will be looking for plants movement towards that bulb that are on either side and look at growth of the plants directly underneith it. all these plants are about 6" tall. its presently 10pm when I placed the bulb in the slot, will make first post on if any changes about that time tomorrow night.

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I cant wait! and yes the plants do enjoy the actinic light!