All 6 of my Red Suns in two different fixtures are going strong....maybe I just got lucky?
LED Without LEDs -My First T5 Grow
- Thread starter pr0fesseur
- Start date
Undercover Cop
Active Member
The four red suns I bought, where two went out immediately... AS re-shipped me 2 Fiji Purples to replace them since they were all out of Red Suns... both Fiji's arrived broken in half! And they have no more Fiji's till Feb. I asked about Giessemann Aqua Flora's and Kelly said she wants to help but has nothing else to send me?!?! So Im getting a refund, bought 4 Red Suns from another seller hoping it was just AS's batch that was bad.
I hate the Red Suns after getting burned (a month later and still have blank slots in my 8bulb) but theres nothing comparable for pure red.
I hate the Red Suns after getting burned (a month later and still have blank slots in my 8bulb) but theres nothing comparable for pure red.
Lucius Vorenus
Well-Known Member
Cool! What do you think about their bulbs?
mipainpatient
Active Member
Yo undercover- you asked a ways back about comparing bulbs w similar outputs/spds. This is actually a huge issue the way I understand (from the pdf I posted like 40 pages back--one of my first on the thread) as there is no known meter which can reliably compare an artificial emitter (light bulb etc in their varied forms, diodes and so on) to solar irradiance. Boom. Fail for anyone trying to claim they are reproducing sunlight as opposed to claiming to try to emulate sunlight, no meter has been able to do an accurate (at least as far as peer-reviewed science via journals is considered) comparison. Yea I know you can walk outside with your "light meter" and get a number, probably a really high one, and come stick it under a grow bulb and complain or brag depending on the numbers. But the problem is that we have trouble accurately measuring all of the wavelengths at once. All are important in different ways because they are ALL available to the plant from the sun, normally. Full spectrum growing is an important concept because you can see some really bizarre morphologies from "low-quality light" aka deficient spectrums.
I submit 2 ways of measuring the lights.
1) reverse spectroscopy-finding chemical compounds which have peak absorbance/reflectance etc at certain wavelengths/concentrations and rig a spectrometer which can compare it to recorded outputs from a light of the same type...? I'm assuming some of the error comes in the drastically changing output types.
2) Target plant morphologies with low-quality dialed in spectrums.
For example phototropism with blue band, you should be able to arrange a test with even spinach or whatever and same heights/growing conditions, and just move the lights from side to side each day and monitor the pulling power. Put the plants in the middle, do they visibly favor one or the other? By my understanding, until the light saturation point is hit, the phototropism should favor the higher average blue band emission/intensity or some similar relationship of those factors.
If Prof. Craker over at UMass wins this case ( http://www.maps.org/research/mmj/dea_timeline/ It looks so favorable but you know how these things go) then maybe I'll submit some research in this area.
What is useful is comparing lamp to lamp, but major issues arise in the individual measuring devices, the pdf I posted is an analysis of like the 3 leading brand PAR meters.
Sorry if this is all greek to you.
BTW all after you hit the lifespan of your bulbs and retire them from your grow, if you have another unit, they are probably still good to go for growing salad greens etc, or my latest idea:
Green manure + Rhizobium inoculated legume preplants for Added N and myco/bacteria population building time, fueled by old bulbs. (you grow inoculated bean seeds in your soil, potted up and ready for your med stock. After the beans are big enough, or you are done fruiting off them--may want to add nutes back to soil if you harvest a lot, think iron, no EDTA pls----you turn the whole bean plant, chopped up if you prefer, back into the soil and let it "compost" for a week or two before transplanting in your clone/popping in your sprouted bean)
MPP
edit:
the morphology tests in "2)" have been performed with many many many plants, databases are full of the published studies, (search "red light blue light xxx", xxx for plant name, just limited wavelngths have been tested on ganj, and honestly genetics play such a large role I've only seen 2 comprehensive studies and they were more about the terpenoid contents than the light, but a savvy eye can glean the details. There is also that flux density study i posted a bit back
edit edit:
http://www.maps.org/media/view/crakers_legal_team_submits_opening_brief_in_lawsuit_against_dea/
has the pdf link for the brief he submitted on December 15, 2011 read the first 50 or so pages, seems pretty tight.
I submit 2 ways of measuring the lights.
1) reverse spectroscopy-finding chemical compounds which have peak absorbance/reflectance etc at certain wavelengths/concentrations and rig a spectrometer which can compare it to recorded outputs from a light of the same type...? I'm assuming some of the error comes in the drastically changing output types.
2) Target plant morphologies with low-quality dialed in spectrums.
For example phototropism with blue band, you should be able to arrange a test with even spinach or whatever and same heights/growing conditions, and just move the lights from side to side each day and monitor the pulling power. Put the plants in the middle, do they visibly favor one or the other? By my understanding, until the light saturation point is hit, the phototropism should favor the higher average blue band emission/intensity or some similar relationship of those factors.
If Prof. Craker over at UMass wins this case ( http://www.maps.org/research/mmj/dea_timeline/ It looks so favorable but you know how these things go) then maybe I'll submit some research in this area.
What is useful is comparing lamp to lamp, but major issues arise in the individual measuring devices, the pdf I posted is an analysis of like the 3 leading brand PAR meters.
Sorry if this is all greek to you.
BTW all after you hit the lifespan of your bulbs and retire them from your grow, if you have another unit, they are probably still good to go for growing salad greens etc, or my latest idea:
Green manure + Rhizobium inoculated legume preplants for Added N and myco/bacteria population building time, fueled by old bulbs. (you grow inoculated bean seeds in your soil, potted up and ready for your med stock. After the beans are big enough, or you are done fruiting off them--may want to add nutes back to soil if you harvest a lot, think iron, no EDTA pls----you turn the whole bean plant, chopped up if you prefer, back into the soil and let it "compost" for a week or two before transplanting in your clone/popping in your sprouted bean)
MPP
edit:
the morphology tests in "2)" have been performed with many many many plants, databases are full of the published studies, (search "red light blue light xxx", xxx for plant name, just limited wavelngths have been tested on ganj, and honestly genetics play such a large role I've only seen 2 comprehensive studies and they were more about the terpenoid contents than the light, but a savvy eye can glean the details. There is also that flux density study i posted a bit back
edit edit:
http://www.maps.org/media/view/crakers_legal_team_submits_opening_brief_in_lawsuit_against_dea/
has the pdf link for the brief he submitted on December 15, 2011 read the first 50 or so pages, seems pretty tight.
Beagle
Well-Known Member
I'm going to be building my t5 grow box setup soon and am also wondering what bulbs would be best for flowering. I will be sticking with the included 6500k for veg as they have worked fine in my current setup.
Here is what I'm considering so far:
View attachment 2013433
Zoo-med Florasun
View attachment 2013438
Sylvania Gro-lux...which seems to be only available across the pond.
View attachment 2013445
UVL Red Sun ...seems to do nothing for 660nm.
View attachment 2013450
Ultra Growth Wave....coming soon.
Any others(red spectrum!) I should consider?
Here is what I'm considering so far:
View attachment 2013433
Zoo-med Florasun
View attachment 2013438
Sylvania Gro-lux...which seems to be only available across the pond.
View attachment 2013445
UVL Red Sun ...seems to do nothing for 660nm.
View attachment 2013450
Ultra Growth Wave....coming soon.
Any others(red spectrum!) I should consider?
mipainpatient
Active Member
Honestly given the difficulties, I wouldn't be opposed to LED supplementation at this point, I feel like I've seen strip LEDs that do high 600's nm.
Concerning t5s...
I dunno, anyone looked at this before?
[h=1]AquaticLife T5 HO Pink Roseate[/h](http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=21444)
Couldn't find a graph, usually when you throw google the bulb name and hit the images section, you get applicable graphs in the first few pages...but the only ones I saw for like 20 or so pages were graphs for other products, thats not even getting into the accuracy or biasing of the graphs when you do find them.
Excited about the ultra can't get em so work with what you can I guess.
MPP
BlueB
Active Member
Check this out guys. The verticle measurement on these graphs really don't mean much. The graph is only a representation of how the different wavelengths compare as in the ratio of blue to green to red. When I was doing the measurement for the Fiji Purple bulb the graph would shrink and grow vertically depending on how far the light was being held from the optic fiber sensor on the spectrometer. I had to stand about 7 feet away just to get a graph that wasn't off the chart. So the reason that we are seeing all these different Y-axis measurements is because they are irrelavant. The graph is meant only to show the buyer how the proportions of the light emitted. Don't beleive me? Call one of these bulb manufactures and ask for a tech.
BlueB
Active Member
NO. The Y-axis is only to show how the peak intensities relate to each other not the overall brightness of the bulb. The reason why no one is using the same vertical measurement is because it is totally irrelevant. I hope I don't have to explain this again. These bulb graphs are only meant to give someone an idea about how the bulb emits the wavelengths in proportion to each other. The wattage is what is going to give you the intensity. For example, a VHO bulb will be much brighter than a HO bulb.
PetFlora
Well-Known Member
Hyroot or anyone else who has HPS experience vs T5s: I think I mentioned that I am babysitting a female that was ~ 21 days into bloom when I took her in. At that time she smelled amazing. The smell has been gone now for awhile. I have no idea what bulb type or intensity (600-1000...) but am beginning to suspect my 432 w T5 setup is missing something, or do I just more T5 watts?
overTHEman
Active Member
Week 9 update.
This is likely the last pic before harvest. Her privates smell like ripe dankity and are covered in crystals. Dense buds but have not swollen, likely due to phosphorus burn issues.
This is likely the last pic before harvest. Her privates smell like ripe dankity and are covered in crystals. Dense buds but have not swollen, likely due to phosphorus burn issues.
BlueB
Active Member
That really looks like some tasty medical shiznit B. What strain do you got there if you know?Week 9 update.
This is likely the last pic before harvest. Her privates smell like ripe dankity and are covered in crystals. Dense buds but have not swollen, likely due to phosphorus burn issues.
BlueB
Active Member
Post a photo! Worth a thousands word!
hyroot
Well-Known Member
thats more or less sounds more like its not being fed what its used to or ph. or maybe thats just the way that strain is. post a pic, ive never had a problem moving them from hps to t5. actually they seem to be more happy when I do that.