Led just for Veg in a 5x5 tent?

[dakilla187]

Spider SE 7000 is the same price as the 680w Mammoth Led Light at $800.....

$800 is a lot of t5 bulbs might be enough bulbs till I croak, lol

So the mammoth you think is better then the spider se 7000, I should get same veg growth as w my t5.....

Is this a waste of money being I only will use it to veg from say 6pm to 6 am, I dunno I do like buying fancy stuff though

Buggers mammoth wants $171 to ship to me, $970 for veg is meh, I might call as 171$ is absolute bullshit

 

[Delps8]

yer and doubt they get it right. the only real way to get true control and full spectrum is diy, but its not cheap and its not very efficient ie multiple drivers and using higher cri broader spectrum whites and less efficient monos to fill the "gaps".

probably never.

rapids royal puck puck is 450nm i think?, i thats the case you dont need to add them. like i said before i can more less guarantee you already have too much 450nm blue in your spectrum.
far red is good addition though, but there are better and cheaper ways off adding it other than using rapids old pucks.

Hmm, too bad about getting those changes into the mainstream. Building your own light might get just the right spectrum but that's a viable alternative for only a very small number of growers, myself included.

Based on how technological innovation has worked historically, the valuable features will trickle down one day though it might take a few years. No rush. Somehow, we'll all manage to grow decent weed, I suspect.

 

[Delps8]

Spider SE 7000 is the same price as the 680w Mammoth Led Light at $800.....

$800 is a lot of t5 bulbs might be enough bulbs till I croak, lol

No question. And if the T5's are working, that's an easy decision.

So the mammoth you think is better then the spider se 7000, I should get same veg growth as w my t5.....

The spectrum on the Mammoth is arguably "better" but then you get into an in the weeds discussion of "better". They're both excellent products and both will generate light that will allow you to grow a lot of cannabis, regardless of which one is used.

Is this a waste of money being I only will use it to veg from say 6pm to 6 am, I dunno I do like buying fancy stuff though

Whether it's a waste of money or not is completely how you look at it - I don't know what's important to you. You will get great results from a Mammoth, Vipar, Mars, Growcraft, etc. If you have a height restriction or if you want to plants that are compact and have low internodal space, a veg light will help accomplish that in a way that a white LED cannot. White LED's have to have enough red to get cell expansion in flower so they cannot produce plants that have the same characteristics as if they were grown using a veg light.

Buggers mammoth wants $171 to ship to me, $970 for veg is meh, I might call as 171$ is absolute bullshit

That bumps the price of the Mammoth to about $1k. Check shipping on the Growcraft and the others and then see what fits your budget. If you want a dedicated veg light, your choices are either HLG or Growcraft, as far as I know. OTOH, if you want a light that you can use for veg and flower, go with a regular LED grow light. Again, looking at the lights that are under discussion, there are no bad choices.

 

[Nizza]

260W QB® V2 Bspec® LED Kit – Horticulture Lighting Group
HLG 300L Bspec LED Horticulture Veg Light – Horticulture Lighting Group
HLG SABER 150 – Horticulture Lighting Group (non dimmable)

pay attention when you buy LED's make sure the driver is dimmable, you want a passive cooled design with a high chip count of quality LED's. If the temperature is usually on the low side you might want to just keep the t5's cause you will need a heater

I like HLG alot, and I like the kits cause they give you the best bang for the buck. If I had to choose, I'd get an XL heat sync with 2 b spec boards on each side and have a different spectrum board in the middle with a second driver.

I wouldnt buy such an expensive light if I were you just to replace 8 4ft t5 lights. 24w X 8 is about 200 watts total I think you'd be happy with something much cheaper to satisfy your needs. the 300w light or even two of the 260w's would definitely suite your needs IMHO. Or you could try 1 saber light just to get your feet wet. Hope this helps good luck with your buy!

Maybe keep a few t5's around and go with the 300L they have great reviews

 

[dakilla187]

260W QB® V2 Bspec® LED Kit – Horticulture Lighting Group
HLG 300L Bspec LED Horticulture Veg Light – Horticulture Lighting Group
HLG SABER 150 – Horticulture Lighting Group (non dimmable)

pay attention when you buy LED's make sure the driver is dimmable, you want a passive cooled design with a high chip count of quality LED's. If the temperature is usually on the low side you might want to just keep the t5's cause you will need a heater

I like HLG alot, and I like the kits cause they give you the best bang for the buck. If I had to choose, I'd get an XL heat sync with 2 b spec boards on each side and have a different spectrum board in the middle with a second driver.

I wouldnt buy such an expensive light if I were you just to replace 8 4ft t5 lights. 24w X 8 is about 200 watts total I think you'd be happy with something much cheaper to satisfy your needs. the 300w light or even two of the 260w's would definitely suite your needs IMHO. Or you could try 1 saber light just to get your feet wet. Hope this helps good luck with your buy!

Maybe keep a few t5's around and go with the 300L they have great reviews

Thanks, I took your advice and got the hlg 300 bspec, by the time it came in I had 2 more t5 bulbs go out, so my 50$ pack of 5 bulbs already only has just 2 left...

I have the light cranked down to half way, I should slowly turn it up little by little everynight? I might be already close to the sweetspot as at halfway its alrdy bright... I would imagine at full power its stronger then my 8 bulb t5? Sort of hybrid as they only go under the led from 6.30pm to 6am

 

[Delps8]

Thanks, I took your advice and got the hlg 300 bspec, by the time it came in I had 2 more t5 bulbs go out, so my 50$ pack of 5 bulbs already only has just 2 left...

I have the light cranked down to half way, I should slowly turn it up little by little everynight? I might be already close to the sweetspot as at halfway its alrdy bright... I would imagine at full power its stronger then my 8 bulb t5? Sort of hybrid as they only go under the led from 6.30pm to 6am

You might check the manufacturer's recommendations. They're usually pretty good.

How about now that you've got a nice light, add a PAR meter or light meter to your kit? I strongly recommend that grower get some understanding of how cannabis is impacted by light plus they should get either a PAR meter or a light meter. After all, light is food to plants and a little knowledge about light can really help a grower get the most out of their grow.

Full disclosure - I'm a strong believer in Bugbee's recommendations. Who's "Bugbee"? - Dr. Bruce Bugbee is a professor of plant biology at Utah State and is, as best I can tell, the world's preeminent researcher on growing cannabis. I've watched all of his videos at least once and he provides a wealth of knowledge…for free. If you search for "Bugbee cannabis" on you tube, you'll find a couple of dozen videos. You might wan to start with "Cannabis Grow Lighting Myths and FAQs with Dr. Bruce Bugbee" If you want to understand "why" about lighting, that's a great way to do it.

The advantage of having a PAR/light meter is that you don't have to "gradually" increase light levels. With a meter, you can set your light levels to, say, 900µmols, check how the plants deal with that and, assuming they're OK with that, bump it up another 50µmols the next day.

Research demonstrates that increasing light levels increases yield and crop quality. In fact, there's an almost linear increase in yield of about 5% for every 50µmol increase in light. If you gradually increase light you're "leaving money on the table" during those days when you haven't maxed out the light levels to your plant.

 

[bubba73]

Here my HLG 300L Bspec in a 4x4 just under 1/2 strength .with a 5x5 I would have went with the 600 b spec for a 5x5 , the 600b spec is for a6x6 tent would have real good coverage , like to see how it does in your 5x5 … here a pic of my 4x4 tent with the 300 b spec .

 

[curious2garden]

260W QB® V2 Bspec® LED Kit – Horticulture Lighting Group
HLG 300L Bspec LED Horticulture Veg Light – Horticulture Lighting Group
HLG SABER 150 – Horticulture Lighting Group (non dimmable)

pay attention when you buy LED's make sure the driver is dimmable, you want a passive cooled design with a high chip count of quality LED's. If the temperature is usually on the low side you might want to just keep the t5's cause you will need a heater

I like HLG alot, and I like the kits cause they give you the best bang for the buck. If I had to choose, I'd get an XL heat sync with 2 b spec boards on each side and have a different spectrum board in the middle with a second driver.

I wouldnt buy such an expensive light if I were you just to replace 8 4ft t5 lights. 24w X 8 is about 200 watts total I think you'd be happy with something much cheaper to satisfy your needs. the 300w light or even two of the 260w's would definitely suite your needs IMHO. Or you could try 1 saber light just to get your feet wet. Hope this helps good luck with your buy!

Maybe keep a few t5's around and go with the 300L they have great reviews

HLG 250 VEG PRO

The HLG 250 lamp is designed for rectangular grow spaces. With HLG’s low profile rectangular design, an improved light spread is obtainable at just 12” from the canopy, and is ideal for vegging in vertical racks by maximizing available height for plant growth. This full spectrum white and deep...

horticulturelightinggroup.com

My T5HO seedling fixture needs tubes and a ballast so while waiting I got one of those. I'm shocked as it's out performing my Hyphotonflux 4000 which is almost twice the wattage. My first experience with HLG is a positive one.

 

[Delps8]

Here my HLG 300L Bspec in a 4x4 just under 1/2 strength .with a 5x5 I would have went with the 600 b spec for a 5x5 , the 600b spec is for a6x6 tent would have real good coverage , like to see how it does in your 5x5 … here a pic of my 4x4 tent with the 300 b spec .
View attachment 5269814

Why so little light? Cannabis thrives under high light conditions, including significantly increased plant yield and plant quality.

The plant on the right has the appearance of a plant that has not been given enough light - it's tall with significant internal space and limited foliage. Seeing that it was grown under a veg light, I'd posit that the light level has been low for some time. My rationale for that is that veg lights, with their blue-heavy spectrum, are used to control canopy height and to grow short, compact plants. That's not what I'm seeing in this photo.

I've attached a photo from my current grow. The plant was vegged with a Growcraft X2 veg light and light levels have bee in the 70mol range. The plant is a Chemdog (photo) and is about 70 days old in these pictures. The inflorescence is very dense and the internodal space was so low that it was damned near impossible to work in.

When I flipped a week ago, she was 38" x 24"x 12" tall (the tent is only 24" deep so the front "row" of the plant is pushing up against the tent flaps). As a result of the short internodal space in the plant, the canopy will tend to be even and the plant will tend to yield large colas.





This picture is from an auto flower grow last year. Same veg light + flower light combination as current grow.



That growing style might not be everyone's cup of tea I've found yield to be significant. In that grow, the plants yielded 21 ounces in one and five ounces in the other, for a total of 26 ounces or almost 1kg per square meter.

Below is a graph derived from the a research paper. The increase in yield is not linear, no question, but it does also indicate how responsive cannabis is - by increasing DLI from an average of, say, 600 to 800 - a value that is easily achievable by many LED grow lights - yield increased by just under 20%. Not bad for spending $35 on a light meter and turning up the dial a bit.

 

[bubba73]

Why so little light? Cannabis thrives under high light conditions, including significantly increased plant yield and plant quality.

The plant on the right has the appearance of a plant that has not been given enough light - it's tall with significant internal space and limited foliage. Seeing that it was grown under a veg light, I'd posit that the light level has been low for some time. My rationale for that is that veg lights, with their blue-heavy spectrum, are used to control canopy height and to grow short, compact plants. That's not what I'm seeing in this photo.

I've attached a photo from my current grow. The plant was vegged with a Growcraft X2 veg light and light levels have bee in the 70mol range. The plant is a Chemdog (photo) and is about 70 days old in these pictures. The inflorescence is very dense and the internodal space was so low that it was damned near impossible to work in.

When I flipped a week ago, she was 38" x 24"x 12" tall (the tent is only 24" deep so the front "row" of the plant is pushing up against the tent flaps). As a result of the short internodal space in the plant, the canopy will tend to be even and the plant will tend to yield large colas.

View attachment 5269830

View attachment 5269831

This picture is from an auto flower grow last year. Same veg light + flower light combination as current grow.
View attachment 5269833


That growing style might not be everyone's cup of tea I've found yield to be significant. In that grow, the plants yielded 21 ounces in one and five ounces in the other, for a total of 26 ounces or almost 1kg per square meter.

Below is a graph derived from the a research paper. The increase in yield is not linear, no question, but it does also indicate how responsive cannabis is - by increasing DLI from an average of, say, 600 to 800 - a value that is easily achievable by many LED grow lights - yield increased by just under 20%. Not bad for spending $35 on a light meter and turning up the dial a bit.

View attachment 5269834

Oh . I thought we were talking about veg not flower..but if you want to talk about flower , here a pic of my HLG 650R in flower , don’t think the light is so little …but if you want you can follow my grow journals… hell I have a few. But we can get into the 18/6 in veg using less “light” and using more in 12/12 ….

 

[Delps8]

Oh . I thought we were talking about veg not flower..but if you want to talk about flower , here a pic of my HLG 650R in flower , don’t think the light is so little …but if you want you can follow my grow journals… hell I have a few. But we can get into the 18/6 in veg using less “light” and using more in 12/12 …. View attachment 5269837

My comments are about plant light and plant morphology. "veg" light and "flower" light could be described as (useful) "marketing labels" for lights that have a blue or red-heavy spectrum. In the photo that I posted, the plant was in veg until a week ago but I stopped using a veg light a few weeks back because the plant was shaped the way that I want it so I switched to another light that would induce growth (red heavy AKA "flower"). Paraphrasing Bugbee - light spectrum drives plant shape but the amount of light drives growth. Having said that, he does, however, publish research using white LED's and that's where he describes, and illustrates, the differences in plant morphology as light levels increase.

The pictures that you've just posted have similar characteristics to the ones posted previously but, of course, they could have been defoliated, trained, etc. Regardless, the characteristics of the plants in the picture that you've posted are that they have large internodal space and you can also see through the plant canopy. Again, it's up to growing style but, to a lot of growers, a photon that hits the floor//top of the res is wasted.

Plant morphology is heavily impacted by spectrum but it's also impacted by DLI. Most growers don't use a veg light + a flower light but there are advantages when those tools are used as they're designed to be used. Some growers go with the R lights and have no idea that it's a flower light so they don't add any blue. They end up with tall plants with signficant internodal space. That's OK if the grower has a high ceiling but that also impacts what the colas look like. One of the mods at the site for auto flower growers uses an X3 flower light and runs a Rapid LED Royal Blue puck throughout the grow. His experience is that it increases the amount of inflorescence but that's just confirmation of we know to be true about plants.


You've put money into lighting and you've got lots of space (I'd love to get a 4' x 4' instead of my 2' x 4'!) what about a light meter? A Uni-T is (was) $35. Take some readings and use the conversion factor provided by the manufacturer (or use the table below) and you've got your PPFD values. I created this document when I started thinking about the validity of using a LUX meter instead of a PAR meter.

Very few manufacturers publish the PPF to LUX conversions but HLG and Growcraft do provide them. Check out the table for an entry and you'll be able to accurately convert lux to PPFD.





Some data…

I measure my light levels about every other day. Below are the readings from yesterday. The battery for my Apogee died so I'm using my Uni-T light meter and am using a conversion factor of 0.16 (that's based values that Growcraft publishes and I've confirmed that value is very close to what my particular light is generating as of last Fall). I sample nine spots and they average 966µmols or a DLI of 42. What's also important is that the standard deviation of those values is pretty low - 86µmols or 4 mols. Lower those values indicates a more even light cast. Checking the data, location 8 (center right) is the outlier. I need to remove the weight from that branch or, in some cases, I would put a plant hanger from the light to get that area closer to the light.




Values for my current grow:

 

[Delps8]

For anyone interested:

I just Googled "bruce bugged plant morphology" and the paper "Spectral Effects of Three Types of White Light-emitting Diodes on Plant Growth and Development: Absolute versus Relative Amounts of Blue Light" might provide insight. I grabbed a copy because I don't think I've read it.

This was an interesting read - "High light intensities can be used to grow healthy and robust cannabis plants during the vegetative stage of indoor production" Bugbee isn't an author on that paper but I think Youbin Zheng was a student of Bugbee's.

And because blue light inhibits cell expansion, lots of blue light in flower tends to decrease yield. I refer to it as the "blue light penalty" and Bugbee states:

"Through the three different trials, they found that as the percent of blue photons increased from 4 to 20%, flower yield decreased by 12.3%. This means that flower yield increased by 0.77% per 1% decrease in blue photons. However, it is thought that far-red photons also played a small part in the 12% decrease. Additionally, the blue photon fraction had no effect on final cannabinoid concentration."

That paper is found here - https://www.apogeeinstruments.com/increasing-cannabis-economic-yield-through-lighting/

 

[Nizza]

Thanks, I took your advice and got the hlg 300 bspec, by the time it came in I had 2 more t5 bulbs go out, so my 50$ pack of 5 bulbs already only has just 2 left...

I have the light cranked down to half way, I should slowly turn it up little by little everynight? I might be already close to the sweetspot as at halfway its alrdy bright... I would imagine at full power its stronger then my 8 bulb t5? Sort of hybrid as they only go under the led from 6.30pm to 6am

Try a cheap Lux meter to establish baselines and then work from there

Or get a par meter. This will cost a bit but if u really wanna be in control of your dimming you can borrow a par Meter and remember height and % and then mark the dimmer and make a record.

With greater light comes greater responsibilities. You may be able to achieve higher intensity with better environmental control and nutrition. HLG hasn't let me down yet and you have a fixture now to learn off of for years to come

 

[dakilla187]

Kind of complete backwards for my style as I avoid squat close internode spaced plants, im an outdoor grower and bubbas plants are what im used to with my t5... The short small plants downright scare me and if my led does that ill get rid of it

 

[Nizza]

Kind of complete backwards for my style as I avoid squat close internode spaced plants, im an outdoor grower and bubbas plants are what im used to with my t5... The short small plants downright scare me and if my led does that ill get rid of it

Don't forget there is also ways to increase internode spacing if the nodes are close

You were looking for a veg light and that is what the b spec is tailored to. If you are using blue t5's this will act the same I'd just try it out and see, I've never been disappointed with HLG. If you really wanted u can get r spec boards to put on there instead too.

R spec adds red
B spec adds blue

Led is a fun journey and I'm sure once you get a chance to run the new lights you'll be happy

 

[Nizza]

Kind of complete backwards for my style as I avoid squat close internode spaced plants, im an outdoor grower and bubbas plants are what im used to with my t5... The short small plants downright scare me and if my led does that ill get rid of it

How's the light performing for you? Are you running 80 degrees F in that room to help with the LED?

 

[dakilla187]

Its not enough at max power so I kicked on 3 bulbs of 4ft t5 with it which is 5 t5's less then before the led

My problem is I run through tons of plants at different heights, the t5 is always stationary while the led seems to have to be adjusted lower and closer

I have the t5 over my bigger 4ft plants and the led over and lower on the up and comers.....

I noticed it wasnt enough when I saw my taller plants sexing

I wish t5 bulbs were not going extinct cause they do perform so much better in veg, I might buy another led or just run it how i have it now....Keep in mind that my plants eat the sun during daylight hours.....

I also might take out another t5 bulb and just run 2 bulbs with the led.....You see prices on t5 bulbs, 5 for $50 crazy!!! It used to be 10 for $40