LED Without LEDs -My First T5 Grow

[pr0fesseur]

oh i will ordered up the seeds yesterday. gunna hav e a few tomato varieties, some jalapenos, sugar snaps and lettuce. might play with some hydro as well

NOOOOO!!!
shibby...
well i hope you sort those legal issues out, Ive personally been screwed as such more power to you!!

 

[pr0fesseur]

I'm a big believer in flouros and am a big fish enthusiast as well but I'm having a hard time with this... I didn't read the entire thread - did yields rise rapidly after the initial test run? 1 oz from 116w is pretty terrible; I yielded 6oz from 388w of CFL during my initial test run with them - nearly twice the the g/w and that barely compares to my HID grows. All 388w of my CFL cost me $5, that's 1/4 the price of a single UVL bulb.

I totally agree that spectrum is often overlooked but side by side comparisons always show the standard flouros to do better when growing plants. Hard to argue with side by side scientific testing (I'm talking about fish tank plant testing as they tend to be much more scientific than pot growers and accurate info is much easier to find). If you went onto a coral forum and told them that using just actinic would grow better coral than a MH they would laugh - and that's what these bulbs are made for.

Actinic bulbs penetrate water well and help with particular algae but even coral people admit that they don't grow plants very well. Here is a great aquarium site with a TON of useful scientific information. Even here they state that most 6500k grow flouros will out do actinics/narrow range bulbs.

http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Lighting.html

Again im not using JUST actinics...
AND HID bulb manufacturers are getting the hint that spectrum is what were after.. They make HID bulbs EXACTLY like the t5 aquarium lights for growing... i have them bookmarked and will share once i get my personal bulb first

 

[UnderCurrentDWC]

NOOOOO!!!
shibby...
well i hope you sort those legal issues out, Ive personally been screwed as such more power to you!!

Have you been having problems since starting posting here at RIU?

 

[pr0fesseur]

Yes you can use that fixture, yes you can get these bulbs in 2 foot I think you can still get the Ati pro color 660nm the professeur uses in the 2 foot length. The bulb order looks good. I include a ulv 75.25 during veg
Happy to see you interested in using the P.A.R T5 bulbs.

Happy growing
UCDWC~

I concur..
DWC can you post that vid you made here plz show people what you have?

 

[pr0fesseur]

Have you been having problems since starting to posting here at RIU?

No... Only the very first grow police wanted to "take a look around and i had nothing... they grabbed what they wanted and eventually returned it... everything was packed away as my plants suffered Spidermite death.. so it was very fortunate..
i use HEAVY encryption with a hidden volume by truecrypt... i will happily let anyone take my pc they wont get anything

 

[UnderCurrentDWC]

Again im not using JUST actinics...
AND HID bulb manufacturers are getting the hint that spectrum is what were after.. They make HID bulbs EXACTLY like the t5 aquarium lights for growing... i have them bookmarked and will share once i get my personal bulb first

You bastard!!.. send me a pm!

 

[UnderCurrentDWC]

I concur..
DWC can you post that vid you made here plz show people what you have?

I had posted it a few pages back but would be obliged too do it again.

[video=youtube;xzE-I3ad6_w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzE-I3ad6_w&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/video]​

 

[AltarNation]

Having a little light trouble... lost one of my reds... looking into warranty info since it's pretty new. In the mean time I'm dropping in a bloom bulb from agromax to supplement.

 

[AltarNation]

You bastard!!.. send me a pm!

ditto this.. I have a 6" duct from the blower running right above the T5s at the top of the space... seems silly that there is not an HID in a cool tube in there ... I could easily shift my T5's to a vertical arrangement and have some serious lighting coming from two directions... that would open up my space and allow me to use it to it's full extent as well... hmmm... I might just have to do this anyway, new bulb or not, haha.

 

[novice11]

Having a little light trouble... lost one of my reds... looking into warranty info since it's pretty new. In the mean time I'm dropping in a bloom bulb from agromax to supplement.

Lots of problems with the last shipment of Red Suns, it seems. Aquarium Specialties has been good about replacing them, if that's where it came from.

 

[AltarNation]

Yeah I saw someone else post about something along those lines... I'm sure they'll be cool about it... their service has been great so far.

 

[UnderCurrentDWC]

Last week I transfered 8 plants from under the T5 to bloom under 2000w of Hps freeing up a lot of space in my veg room. The 4 plants left under the badboy are very happy with lots of room to grow. My roots are massive & healthy and the leaves continue to come out Dark Dark Green and very fragrant.

Notes:
I've also found my flowering plants under HPS have lost that deep dark green.
Flowering plants have started to show sex in under a week.

Happy Growing!
UCDWC~

This Week:

Last week

 

[PetFlora]

My leaves are dark- dark green too. I am experimenting in m y F & D rig. I was running 4 feed cycles per lights on, but today I decided to go with a cycle every 45 minutes. This should not be a problem as plant roots are in lava rock (quick drain). I will stay with only 2 feedings during lights out. Hoping all that extra food + the bulbs will super charges bud development, which was already pretty good. Will post pics next week

 

[hyroot]

Again im not using JUST actinics...
AND HID bulb manufacturers are getting the hint that spectrum is what were after.. They make HID bulbs EXACTLY like the t5 aquarium lights for growing... i have them bookmarked and will share once i get my personal bulb first

yeah I think I want to know too, but I' m not sure though.. I think I'd rather still stick with the t5 based on the heat factor. Even with venting my 1k at 2 feet away still puts out a great deal of heat. It kind of burns the plants that directly centered under it. those ones definitely get a little light bleaching too.

 

[AltarNation]

Dude those root balls :O oh my god.

 

[grapeoptimo]

if u can keep those healthy they will b great.

 

[UnderCurrentDWC]

Thought I'd show a few pics of my canopy, I also hung a bb vertical in the flower room.

 

[AssDan]

Thanks Pr0f for doing the leg work on this subject. I read the entire thread, and I like to think I absorbed most of it. I'm fairly new to growing and I chose T5s as my light source. I'm glad that you and this community here has said to hell with conventional thinking. I feel the same way. In different posts, I was told that I needed HID lights and that T5s are only good for clones. I nearly believed them and was really considering a 400w HPS.

I'm doing my grow conventionally right now with 6500k for veg and 3000k for flowering and growing some decent flowers. When I have the money for new bulbs, and possibly more fixtures, I'm giving your method a shot.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for bringing this to the attention of anyone who is open to new ideas.

PS - I agree there needs to be a separate fourm for T5 growers.

 

[AltarNation]

I'm not entirely satisfied with the temperature inside my tent... I've got a panasonic whisperline @240 cfm but heat is still building up over the course of the day, slowly rising to 80-85 ambient in a room that's something like 70-75 ambient. I'm not sure what would have happened if I let it keep building up the rest of the day, because I opened it to check things out.

Anyway, as a solution, I am strongly considering replacing the ballast box on my unit with a 2x4 and moving the whole ballast box outside of the grow area. Lengthening all the wires sounds like a pain in my ass, but I don't want to heat-stress my plants. As "cool" as these lights run compared to a HID (ie, the ballasts don't need to be remote) I still feel the heat would be a lot more manageable overall with the ballasts outside the tent. I'd recommend anyone getting T5's to go more along the "build your own" route and use remote ballasts just for the extra convenient level of heat control it yields. The reflectors right up on the bulbs are cool to the touch, but the ballast box gets pretty uncomfortably warm.

 

[TechnoMage]

I'm not entirely satisfied with the temperature inside my tent... I've got a panasonic whisperline @240 cfm but heat is still building up over the course of the day, slowly rising to 80-85 ambient in a room that's something like 70-75 ambient. I'm not sure what would have happened if I let it keep building up the rest of the day, because I opened it to check things out.

Anyway, as a solution, I am strongly considering replacing the ballast box on my unit with a 2x4 and moving the whole ballast box outside of the grow area. Lengthening all the wires sounds like a pain in my ass, but I don't want to heat-stress my plants. As "cool" as these lights run compared to a HID (ie, the ballasts don't need to be remote) I still feel the heat would be a lot more manageable overall with the ballasts outside the tent. I'd recommend anyone getting T5's to go more along the "build your own" route and use remote ballasts just for the extra convenient level of heat control it yields. The reflectors right up on the bulbs are cool to the touch, but the ballast box gets pretty uncomfortably warm.

That was the problem I had in my cab. I had four, 2x32w T8 reflectors (total 8 bulbs) as side lighting and a 3x55w T5 reflector as my main and had serious problems with heat. I moved to a 250w HPS CoolTube and it decreased my temp and I still had a bigger yield. Just a warning, how remote you can make your ballast depends on your ballast. For example, with Fulham ballast, the WorkHorse can only go the length of it's leads, the HighHorse is 9 feet and the Long Horse is 20 feet.