LED Without LEDs -My First T5 Grow

[pushu]

Hey all! I've been studying this thread in and out about T5 HO lighting for the past 5 months and I have to say I'm quite impressed. A couple months ago I decided to take the plunge and purchase a couple fixtures and bulbs. I purchased some red suns, fiji purples, super actinics, 454 blue, and some flora suns. I've swapped 'em around to find the right light color and I think I've found it. What I'm runnin right now in a 4-bulb fixture is 1 red sun, 1 fiji purple, 1 super actinic and 1 flora sun. The plants love it. They stay short, stocky, perky and healthy all the way through. I ditched the 454 blue because the Fiji Purple is rich in the 454nm wavelength already. I'm totally in love with the Fiji purple. I think it's the best T5 for this purpose. My configuration goes actinic plus/red sun/fiji purple/flora sun in that order and it rocks. I really don't think it gets much better than that. I'm doing shelf systems with 4-bulb 4 foot hydrofarm designer fixtures one on top of the other. A fan is necessary to cool the fixtures otherwise the plants above get a little warm and it ain't good. When UVL gets their new deep red bulb made I'm going to take out the Flora Sun and swap it for the deep red UVL lamp since there are unnecessary wavelengths in the Flora Sun lamps. Feel free to ask any questions and happy growing y'all.

the cheapest I can find the fiji purple is 29.95 for a 4' T5 is that bulb really worth the money?

I have a combination of coral wave and flora suns and plants seem to be doing well, but it's my first T5 grow so I have nothing to compare it to
stayed away from the red suns after reading all the issues that many posting here have had

 

[kpmarine]

the cheapest I can find the fiji purple is 29.95 for a 4' T5 is that bulb really worth the money?

I have a combination of coral wave and flora suns and plants seem to be doing well, but it's my first T5 grow so I have nothing to compare it to
stayed away from the red suns after reading all the issues that many posting here have had

That fiasco with the red suns was a bad run of bulbs. I haven't had any issues other than one bulb that was still under the retailer's return policy. The Fiji Purples are a bit of a dilemma. We have no clue what the actual spd for them is.

 

[hyroot]

so just finished my first sog under one 8 bulb. Got exactly 6 oz. Not to happy. Yield cut in half. They are dank and very resinous. Just a little upset with the yield. Going back to big plants.

 

[PetFlora]

^^ I agree Although my 2 Indica dom ladies (pic # 1) will be spectacular, their combined buds will not equal 4 branches from their Sat dom sister

These were taken last Friday. All have fattened up a good bit since then, especially the Sat dom which has been fed V & B for 2 weeks. The Veg +BLOOM nutes are awesome compared to DM- seeing ~ 5xs the tric production.

I ordered a pound and will totally switch to it instead of DM In fairness to the DM, I have been using DM Grow ONE but during flower bumping it with Potash+, and I probably don't have the ratios at all dialed in. Still V & B is easy-peasy

I bet I could have FIMed, LSTd or snapped each of the resulting 4 main branches and let them fill up the entire space below my 8 bulb

 

[PSUAGRO.]

the cheapest I can find the fiji purple is 29.95 for a 4' T5 is that bulb really worth the money?

Question of the century..................

 

[hyroot]

Pet. I did a bunch of 1 gals. No topping or bending or anything. Got bigger budss. Just not enough of them. Next ones I put in 2 gal grow bags. Took a screw driver and punched a lot of holes to make air-bags, after putting in the soil. So hope that works. Topped all of em. The new ones are 10 days into veg, around a foot tall and bushy under 6 bulb. Going to let em go 5 or 6 weeks then flower. Next ones after that I will lst.

I switched to roots organic uprising line. Mix that and epsom salt in the soil. Uprising already has enough cal. Top dress once month with for next feeds. Top dress ewc every 2 weeks. Feed a compost tea every 7 to 10 days. Then just water the other times. That method kicks ass. Grows almost as fast as hydro and all organic.

Using roots organic original soil.

 

[WyoGrow]

Holy shit Batman.... this is a long god damned thread!!!! My brain is fried from 2 days worth of 5hrs a pop reading this monster.

I am going to be running a 32" 6 bulb fixture in the upper flowering compartment of my grow cabinet and a 24" 4 bulb fixture in the lower veg compartment. I am not going to be the 432nd butthole to ask what bulb configuration you'd suggest for each. But I am going to ask for your input on the bulb configuration I am homing in on. For ease of understanding I am just going to list all UVL bulbs.

6 bulb unit:
2 x Red Sun (633nm), 2 x 12000k, 1 x UltraBlue (454nm) & 1 x Super Actincic (420nm)

4 bulb unit:
2 x 12000k, 1 x UltraBlue & 1 x Super Actincic.

Thanks for your time. And I apologize because I know you've gone over this a lot and I've tried to absorb the pertinent info from this thread. But it's so god damned long now that gleaning out a single post out of 441 pages is a daunting task.

 

[hyroot]

Holy shit Batman.... this is a long god damned thread!!!! My brain is fried from 2 days worth of 5hrs a pop reading this monster.

I am going to be running a 32" 6 bulb fixture in the upper flowering compartment of my grow cabinet and a 24" 4 bulb fixture in the lower veg compartment. I am not going to be the 432nd butthole to ask what bulb configuration you'd suggest for each. But I am going to ask for your input on the bulb configuration I am homing in on. For ease of understanding I am just going to list all UVL bulbs.

6 bulb unit:
2 x Red Sun (633nm), 2 x 12000k, 1 x UltraBlue (454nm) & 1 x Super Actincic (420nm)

4 bulb unit:
2 x 12000k, 1 x UltraBlue & 1 x Super Actincic.

Thanks for your time. And I apologize because I know you've gone over this a lot and I've tried to absorb the pertinent info from this thread. But it's so god damned long now that gleaning out a single post out of 441 pages is a daunting task.

The veg bulbs are good. But for flower too much blue. Id go with 2 redsuns, 3 zoo med flora suns
And 1 wave point coral waves. The redsuns will give the 630nm red. The flora suns 660nm red (bigger buds) and uv-a and uv-b. The coral wave has actinics 420 nm blue and uv-a and alot of infrared. The IR drives flowering and makes the buds dense.

 

[polyarcturus]

Holy shit Batman.... this is a long god damned thread!!!! My brain is fried from 2 days worth of 5hrs a pop reading this monster.

I am going to be running a 32" 6 bulb fixture in the upper flowering compartment of my grow cabinet and a 24" 4 bulb fixture in the lower veg compartment. I am not going to be the 432nd butthole to ask what bulb configuration you'd suggest for each. But I am going to ask for your input on the bulb configuration I am homing in on. For ease of understanding I am just going to list all UVL bulbs.

6 bulb unit:
2 x Red Sun (633nm), 2 x 12000k, 1 x UltraBlue (454nm) & 1 x Super Actincic (420nm)

4 bulb unit:
2 x 12000k, 1 x UltraBlue & 1 x Super Actincic.

Thanks for your time. And I apologize because I know you've gone over this a lot and I've tried to absorb the pertinent info from this thread. But it's so god damned long now that gleaning out a single post out of 441 pages is a daunting task.

yeah i would switch all your super Actinics and ultrablues (both veg and flower) with flora suns .

 

[WyoGrow]

Thanks for the input. I have those bulbs on hand already. Sweet, don't have to order any.

 

[pushu]

Question of the century..................

I decided to forget the fuji purple and ordered the last three 54w red suns that hellolights had in stock
added one coral wave-wave point and got free shipping

 

[Lucius Vorenus]

anyone have any photographs?

 

[Lucius Vorenus]

so just finished my first sog under one 8 bulb. Got exactly 6 oz. Not to happy. Yield cut in half. They are dank and very resinous. Just a little upset with the yield. Going back to big plants.

How many plants were under it?

You got about .38gpw which is about average for growing under T5's IMO. If you add Co2 you should be able to kick it just over .5

 

[hyroot]

How many plants were under it?

You got about .38gpw which is about average for growing under T5's IMO. If you add Co2 you should be able to kick it just over .5

i had 20 1 gals. everytime Ive done 8 big ones under an 8 bulb i got around 11 or 12 oz. the sog ones became root bound too, that might of been part of the problem,

 

[kpmarine]

Since I haven't posted here in a while, here's my GDP mother I stretched out under an 8 bulb. Threw in 4 more 4 footers on the sides to help with the lower growth. This is day 19 of 12/12 for her.

 

[48martin]

Looks like a full healthy canopy KP

Nice Job!

 

[PetFlora]

I figure most people reading this thread would come visit my T 5 grow. The biggest improvement I see is due to switching from DM Gold to Hydroponic-Research VEG + BLOOM. DM was doing a decent job, but V + B is the goods

I took these pics Friday and I swear bud size has doubled already. #2 is of the main stalk, which I snapped 4 weeks ago. Since taking this it is damn near as thick as my forearm. Next time I take a pick I will put my forearm behind it as a reference.

View attachment 2206761

 

[hyroot]

When your redsuns burned out. Did they appear a much darker red and not as bright just before dying? One of my redsuns is doing that. I've been using it since last september.

 

[kpmarine]

When your redsuns burned out. Did they appear a much darker red and not as bright just before dying? One of my redsuns is doing that. I've been using it since last september.

It should, that's how other flouros look when they go out. Dark, and maybe flickery.

 

[hyroot]

Well that just sucks. I have not had one burn out on me yet and I've been running them for almost a year. Well I have one extra coral wave I guess I'll use til a new one arrives. Time to order a new one. Maybe another flora sun instead of redsun. Save 5 dol...