LED Without LEDs -My First T5 Grow

[Undercover Cop]

lol yeah I saw that it said HPS in your original post, and I had originally quoted it in response to someone else who mentioned that they'd never pulled 6oz off a single plant before, even with HID... playfully referencing it as if to say "damn we all must be doing something wrong then" I just thought it humorous that you thought that it had to have been an exageration or mistake for someone to claim a full pound .... and 11oz isnt quite 16oz.
I only mentioned it in the first place because a 1lb plant is almost unheard of for even the most experienced indoor growers.
And I only responded to your question - if I had mistaken a pound for an ounce - to clarify that I had never claimed that harvest, and to point out that the person I was originally quoting was infact yourself. I thought the whole thing was quite funny.

 

[BlueB]

Did those "seeds" look like bananas?

No, they looked like immature seeds. There was only one banana on the whole plant and only one male flower. Next time you flower, take a real close look at the inside of a calyx and on the very bottom inside the calyx, still attached to the hair you will find the ovule. This IS the seed before it gets pollenated and starts to grow into an actual seed. It's pretty cool. It makes me realize though that every single calyx on every single female plant is filled with seeds. We all be smokin seeds. When the buds dry they pretty much shrink so much that you don't notice.

 

[BlueB]

lol yeah I saw that it said HPS in your original post, and I had originally quoted it in response to someone else who mentioned that they'd never pulled 6oz off a single plant before, even with HID... playfully referencing it as if to say "damn we all must be doing something wrong then" I just thought it humorous that you thought that it had to have been an exageration or mistake for someone to claim a full pound .... and 11oz isnt quite 16oz.
I only mentioned it in the first place because a 1lb plant is almost unheard of for even the most experienced indoor growers.
And I only responded to your question - if I had mistaken a pound for an ounce - to clarify that I had never claimed that harvest, and to point out that the person I was originally quoting was infact yourself. I thought the whole thing was quite funny.

Hahaha, yeah ya lost me a little bit but anyway the one pound I thought I would pull off was an estimate since when I said that I was in the middle of chopping when fresh. It only finished drying today actually so I finally got the weight. I think that 11 oz is pretty close for guessing anyway. I also got 1/4 of some nice kief. Overall, it's the most I've pulled off of one plant ever. I wish it could have finished all the way. The trichromes were only 50% milky and 50% clear. Still had a couple weeks left at least. Oh well, maybe next time. The quality is nowhere near what it is when grown outside. I am hoping that will change under my T5 setup for the next time. Bring it on UVb.

So do you still got that Fruity Juice strain going? Is that the same Sativa one from Sensi Seeds? Looks like a good one to try.

 

[Undercover Cop]

... still got that Fruity Juice strain going? Is that the same Sativa one from Sensi Seeds? Looks like a good one to try.

Just shed her seed shell yesterday and is getting used to her grodan cube, was a freebie with the lucky 7 @ attitude, 90% indica, Im gonna try to stick with short bushy indica's. http://en.seedfinder.eu/strain-info/Fruity_Chronic_Juice/Delicious_Seeds/

 

[BlueB]

The secret to getting a pound off of one plant is to prune, top, transplant, prune, top, transplant until you have a giant bush in a 20 gallon container. Yes, it will take up your entire grow room and it takes a lot more time, but it is fun pulling a lot of giant buds off of one plant. The most I've heard someone pulling off of one plant is 2 pounds, but the plant was around 12 feet tall and about 7 feet wide and grown outside. This will not work for the T5 method due to the lack of penetration, nothing a little side lighting can't fix.

 

[BlueB]

Just shed her seed shell yesterday and is getting used to her grodan cube, was a freebie with the lucky 7 @ attitude, 90% indica, Im gonna try to stick with short bushy indica's. http://en.seedfinder.eu/strain-info/Fruity_Chronic_Juice/Delicious_Seeds/

Here is the one I was referring to.
http://sensiseeds.com/cannabis-seeds/sensi-seeds/fruity-juice

 

[pedro420]

The secret to getting a pound off of one plant is to prune, top, transplant, prune, top, transplant until you have a giant bush in a 20 gallon container. Yes, it will take up your entire grow room and it takes a lot more time, but it is fun pulling a lot of giant buds off of one plant. The most I've heard someone pulling off of one plant is 2 pounds, but the plant was around 12 feet tall and about 7 feet wide and grown outside. This will not work for the T5 method due to the lack of penetration, nothing a little side lighting can't fix.

There is a guy on here somewhere who literly grew a tree it was taller than his house and was about 9/10 feet wide he said he pulled almost 8 pounds off her the main stem was the size of his arm in the pics

 

[falcon223]

Well I got every one beat. I got a monster in the grow room that is for sure going to give me close to an,[ wait is that a LB. or an OZ ] Yea it is a once. I will try to get a pic up soon. Could be an once and a half. But it is my favorite plant in there. There is all ways one you just love more then the rest.
All my plants under the t5 look great, I even have a fern that is going crazy, never got a fern to live this long.

 

[PetFlora]

You sure you don't have thrips? Do you use way more fertilizer than neccessary?

No bugs. Ferting at 750 in a soil medium- could not find out what though. If anything, I may be too low, though I am seeing some tip burn, which could be pH- using aeroponic mix pHed at 5.6, which is probably way low for soil.. Been > 2 weeks with a functioning meter. My new meter would not calibrate. They sent a new probe, but it did not help. Sent the meter back yesterday

Have you investigated Air Pots? They could save you a lot of transplanting

 

[AltarNation]

Hey guys, looking for some opinions on somethin.. I just got a new tent and it's so tall I don't think I'll utilize the entire thing with my T5's needing to be so close to the buds. Since penetration is minimal with T5's, I'm not going to be growing really tall in this tent unless I back-hang the T5's vertically or something. I don't really want to do that, though, since it requires I veg out for so long and I don't really have the time for that, so to speak.

So what I am thinking is, I'd like to work with the tent's parameters (a little larger than 2x4x7) and I was considering building some kind of metal grated platform halfway up... then I'd buy a second 8-bulb fixture and do two floors of T5 awesomeness and then go 12/12 from clone to control height and ensure a tight canopy for the T5's. It also eliminates the veg time... which is critical for me, because I am trying to keep up with my own usage at this point and I haven't gotten ahead of the curve yet as a grower... (ie, I probably won't have enough to last til next harvest as it is.)

So here's what i'm wondering... increase footprint AND lights, or just lights?

Because the other option is, I could buy two 4-bulb fixtures and hang them vertically at the back and front of the existing setup. Then I'd have 16 bulbs on a single 2x4 footprint.

Anyone have any idea which of these options would yield better? Let's assume I'd go SOG 12/12 from clone on the latter setup as well.

I'm tempted to go for the two-floor arrangement... I'm thinking the yield would be better in this arrangement but I might be way off... so just wondering if anyone ahs any input on those options.

 

[BlueB]

I could honestly care less about yield. My friend grew this same strain outdoors last summer and it went a lot longer and had time to finish. They only pulled about 1/8 ounce from the plant but the flavor was amazing. It doesn't even taste like the same smoke. The medicinal properties are 100 fold in quality. I now know why. Read this article. http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/07/14/how-cannabis-works/

 

[Undercover Cop]

I'm tempted to go for the two-floor arrangement...

and I think you'd prob be better off that way. If you could double your harvest freq then you'd obviously double your yield. but with the size of the buds you're pulling right now, do you think they would double with the addition of sidelighting? Im sure they would benefit greatly but I dont know if a few sidelights (which I use myself) would be able to take a well performing plant to be a super-mongo performer. if you had 2 levels, with 4-5 plants on each level, you could possibly harvest a full plant every 2 weeks

...my 2-3cents

 

[falcon223]

Well when you grow with t5s you should try to keep your plants short.

 

[Undercover Cop]

Well Hellolights jacked with me, I ordered 4 on Saturday then called today to wonder where my tracking number was... oh we're out of stock. Ok well why wouldnt you tell me that you're out of stock when ordering, uh yeah hold on while I go find em elsewhere. So I find em elsewhere on ebay and order those, then Hellolights calls me and says oh yeah we do have em afterall?? Too late! I had already ordered them elsewhere... long story and several fuckups by shitty online stores later and I now should have 2 red suns, 2 Giessemann AquaFlora's and 2 AquaMedic Plant Grow's on the way, so Ill be able to report the differences between them (the red suns will be the most visibly red as the other two still have some blue in them making them purplish, but they're both red heavy and their red is 660nm so yay!)

 

[falcon223]

Yea that is what I did, Just try to get bulbs with red in them. I saw a Roseate bulb that was supposed be in the 750nm rang.

 

[RC7]

Yea that is what I did, Just try to get bulbs with red in them. I saw a Roseate bulb that was supposed be in the 750nm rang.

Hey falcon nice plant! how many watts of t5 was that grown with?

 

[Phaeton]

I am using Red Sun, Flora Sun, and Roseate 650 tubes in 48".

Red sun should be called orange sun, 630 nm is closer to red than HPS but still in the orange section. 630 nm is pretty much all it puts out, bright orange.
Flora sun is red, starts with 630 nm orange then doubles this output at 660 nm, red, genuine red.
Roseate 650, half the output is in the red region, no peaks, smooth even pink light. Nice medium output, works well with clones.

I use several more fluorescents, but for red the Flora Sun out performs them all. I checked with a red light meter (solarmeter 9.6) to be sure.

 

[BlueB]

Hey falcon nice plant! how many watts of t5 was that grown with?

zero, that's not T5 grown, he said that's how short you want to keep them all.

What strain is that?, nice n stocky.

 

[Undercover Cop]

Yea that is what I did, Just try to get bulbs with red in them. I saw a Roseate bulb that was supposed be in the 750nm rang.

All 750? damn, that might put out alotta heat. I consider the Coral waves a blue bulb with a little 760nm bonus. Im with you on getting bulbs with red. The red sun is the only one Ive seen that is almost all red, the rest I still consider primarily a blue bulb with whatever else comes with, so I need bulbs with as much red as possible to keep the spectrum from getting too blue heavy (look at almost any SPD and they all have a big bump in the blue end). I think blue is a dime a dozen, the red peaks (and their strength/weight/location compared to green/yellow) is what you gotta look at in your tube. Unless your panel is all red sun's, you're gonna have blue and green no matter what so its all about getting enough of the full red spectrum (630nm and up). I think this applies to both veg and flower (moreso in flower, obviously) but you're not gonna get the best possible results in veg if your spectrum is dominated by blue... With a blue heavy panel full of actinics, your plants would grow short and squatty with tight internodal distances, but with the proper red spectrum provided, they would grow just as compact but much faster.

Phaeton, I like your bulbs, and may get some rosettes for myself soon. But the red suns look pretty red to me, even next to other bulbs. Chlorophyll responds well to 630-660 so I'd say the red suns are a pretty good choice for PAR (just shoddy quality). And technically above 610nm is considered red. I dont really see any orange in my red suns.



BlueWave, RedSun, CoralWave, RedWave

 

[BlueB]

I am using Red Sun, Flora Sun, and Roseate 650 tubes in 48".

Red sun should be called orange sun, 630 nm is closer to red than HPS but still in the orange section. 630 nm is pretty much all it puts out, bright orange.
Flora sun is red, starts with 630 nm orange then doubles this output at 660 nm, red, genuine red.
Roseate 650, half the output is in the red region, no peaks, smooth even pink light. Nice medium output, works well with clones.

I use several more fluorescents, but for red the Flora Sun out performs them all. I checked with a red light meter (solarmeter 9.6) to be sure.

Flora Suns are indeed the best on the market for your money for getting that deeper red in there. They work, and that's all there is to it. The Red Sun IS a 630nm bulb, specifically and very orange. I really don't think having only one wavelength peak in a bulb is as beneficial as an entire range in the red nm area would be like 630nm to 690nm, then tapering off at 740nm. The only reason we see those Flora Suns so bright is because all the other wasted light they put out, lots of green and middle spectrum. Just remember that the Flora Suns have a lot of blue in them already so I really doubt you would need to add anything else except for maybe right towards the last couple weeks of finishing add some UVb in there.

Currently I have 4 Flora Suns, 2 Red Sun and 2 Fiji Purple in the fixture on 12/12. I was thinking of just taking out the Red Sun altogether and throwing in 2 more Flora Sun. Has anyone noticed any real improvements or benefit with having the Red Suns in there? The Flora Suns already have that 630nm in them along with everything else inbetween 600 and 660 so why not add more of the whole range and what the plant really wants rather than only one peak??????????? When you look at the absorption graph for photosynthesis the 660nm peak is much higher than the 630nm peak so obviously the 660nm range drives photosynthesis more. If that Ultra Growth Wave graph for the bulb that is coming out is right, then it seems like it would really be the only bulb a person would need other than for finishing with some UVb. All these different bulbs we are using in these grows is getting rather confusing and it seems like we could really use some correct tools for the process no? Why don't we all just start a fund raiser and have that Wave Point company make us a better bulb. The bulbs are really designed around aquariums therefore they have much more blue in them for penetrating the water. Ocean life NEEDS blue light because that's the only light that makes it to the bottom for the most part. Terrestrial plants favor the red light and less of the blue spectrum more since they are not under water. It's like we are trying to make a boat out of a car, or build a house out of toothpicks, we really need some custom made bulbs that have the exact wavelengths necessary.