LED Without LEDs -My First T5 Grow

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
I'm still battling aphids. Started multiple sprays yesterday using home made chili concentrate (working on dilution strength) + Borax mixed into RO water. I time them now, and rinse spray after ~ 1 hour
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
For someone flowering with a 4ft 8bulb fixture with all 8 bulbs being the red/flowering color would there be a notable increase in quality or quantity switching to 6red/2blue? A 2ft 4 bulb fixture is available as side lighting, but It has only blue/veg bulbs. Would it be worth the cost of electricity to use the little fixture as a sidelight(24 watts X 4 bulbs = 96 watts )? Is that too much blue?
That could be a lot of blue. Probably OK if you are growing Indica. Can't you change the bulbs?
 

Fonzarelli

Active Member
I'm still battling aphids. Started multiple sprays yesterday using home made chili concentrate (working on dilution strength) + Borax mixed into RO water. I time them now, and rinse spray after ~ 1 hour
I've had REALLY good results using straight finely ground garlic powder on the top of the soil, and mixed into your drain tray and sprinkled on the leaves. Also, use finely ground cayenne pepper the same way. They won't even come out of the soil if you do that. No sweat on them aphids anymore. You could probably even make a garlic/cayenne pepper tea with water and spray the leaves and stems. The nice thing about garlic and cayenne is that it is harmless to plants. It really does work quite well.

Finally got rid of the thrips using the Monterey garden spray. One hit wonder! Easy peazy.
 

hyroot

Well-Known Member
Ancient forest compost got rid of gnats once and for alll for me. Top dress and thats it. Predatory mites are found in compost. They eat all other bugs and die off once bugs / food source is gone. The compost messes with bugs nervous system like rosemary does. Plus all the beneficial bacteria and fungi. Ancient forest makes the best compost tea too.


Read up on Dr. Elaine Ingham. microbiologist and considered the queen of compost.
 

scotchtape51

Well-Known Member
That could be a lot of blue. Probably OK if you are growing Indica. Can't you change the bulbs?

I don't have any 2ft bulbs on hand and no extra cash for supplies now. I just added the 2 footer with the blue bulbs in it.
EDIT: oh yea and it seems like I could only get them in a large case, not just 2 or four bulbs.
 

Kite High

Well-Known Member
I'm still battling aphids. Started multiple sprays yesterday using home made chili concentrate (working on dilution strength) + Borax mixed into RO water. I time them now, and rinse spray after ~ 1 hour
dust with the borax then wait a while and mist...much more effective dry...like de
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
KH What are you using to dust? I have a cheap bellows, but it either doesn't dust enough or too much

Then when I mist the dust congeals into a coating on the leaves.
 

stoned cockatoo

New Member
Randomly stumbled upon this thread, pretty interesting read.
The t5s brought came with 2 actinic and 2 daylight 12000k
I was going to change them up but after reading this I might stick with 1 or 2 actinic bulbs what would you recommend I mix them with considering I only veg under the t5?
 

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
swap up the 2 actinic bulbs for either some 6500k bulbs or some florasuns you got Wayyy to much blue x2 1200k and x2 6500k or 5000k(florasun) would be a better spectrum for veg.
 

jsamuel24

Active Member
Just thought I would stop by and show off my veg a little bit. Even though I went to HPS for flowering since I built a new room I will prolly allways veg under par t5's

8-8-2012



8-14-2012



Snoochie Boochie Noochies!
 

Fonzarelli

Active Member
Just thought I'd let anyone know that is interested. The new device came today and here is a spd reading of the Fiji Purple lamp that some have been waiting for, sure is crazy how manufacturer's "edit" their spd that they put on their packaging. I took spd's of all the different lamps I have and a lot of them are extremely similar. I guess the different manufacturers like to change it up a little bit on their "packaging spd" so that it looks like they are selling a different product when really they are not.

Believe it or not, all of the T5 lamps peak at 405 and 435, including the red sun lamp. Also, the red sun lamp does contain a little 700nm as well. I will post that graph along with the Fiji.

I really do like the Truelumen 460nm, it has a lot of the 460nm just like it says. Still has the 405 and 435 peak like all of them do. Well, here you go.
Fiji Purple lamp

Redsun lamp
 

Lucius Vorenus

Well-Known Member
Just thought I'd let anyone know that is interested. The new device came today and here is a spd reading of the Fiji Purple lamp that some have been waiting for, sure is crazy how manufacturer's "edit" their spd that they put on their packaging. I took spd's of all the different lamps I have and a lot of them are extremely similar. I guess the different manufacturers like to change it up a little bit on their "packaging spd" so that it looks like they are selling a different product when really they are not.

Believe it or not, all of the T5 lamps peak at 410 and 435, including the red sun lamp. Also, the red sun lamp does contain a little 660nm as well. I will post that graph along with the Fiji.

I really do like the Truelumen 460nm, it has a lot of the 460nm just like it says. Still has the 410 and 435 peak like all of them do. Well, here you go.
Fiji Purple lamp
View attachment 2299061
Redsun lamp
View attachment 2299062
Any chance you can test the FloraSun and the Agromax 3000k bulbs? Those have been my best bloomers yet.
 

Fonzarelli

Active Member
Any chance you can test the FloraSun and the Agromax 3000k bulbs? Those have been my best bloomers yet.
yeah, I did the florasun, the only 3000k lamp I tested was a GE one. Here they are.
Florasun lamp

GE 3000k lamp


Also, in case you were wondering Hyroot, the Florasun has a much better output than the Sylvania Gro-Lux FYI. I made the mistake and had a few shipped over from Europe to try them out. Florasun and ATI Procolors are very similar as well. Found a place that still had some 2ft Procolors left and they are the best as far as tri-band+deep red. If you really want me to I can upload the SPD of the Sylvania and Procolor, but I don't want this to get out of hand unless you guys want to start donating some loot LOL, wasn't cheap.
 

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
really interested in the info on the truelumens!!

hell i throw 20$ your way in a month, waiting on a check.. but anyways yeah man keep up the spds i would be happy for any of these real spectrums graphs just Pm all of em to me if you got free time.
 

jsamuel24

Active Member
Fonz, not sure if you have one but can you test out the Coralife Colormax if you have one please. Thinking of replacing my fiji or my Actric with that to get a bit of the blue out of my reg.

Snoogins
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
Nice job by you Fonz!

Have a question, I noticed the vertical legend is different, some start at zero with first demarcation at 10, others it's 1000. What's up with that?
 

Fonzarelli

Active Member
Nice job by you Fonz!

Have a question, I noticed the vertical legend is different, some start at zero with first demarcation at 10, others it's 1000. What's up with that?
I have my device on auto-adjust right now for aperature speed. My guess is that it also adjusts the "vertical axis" which is also relative intensity. It makes no difference if it is 10 or 1000 because it is only used to understand the relationship of the intensity between the peaks within the light spectra being studied.

My guess is that I had the optic closer to the lamps on the ones that have 1000's as the interval. It adjusts itself so that the relative intensity stays the same and you don't get over-saturation when taking a reading. It's a really nice feature.

Just ignore the y-axis, it is not measuring absolute intensity in watts or whatever they measure it with. It is only meant to be used to relate the intensity of the peaks within a light source. This is true for all SPDs, they are not giving you the actual "energy" output(I can't remember the actual name), it is just there to show you how the intensities of the peaks within a light source relate. Basically it is there to show you the ratio of the peak intensities between the peaks within a light source. Does this make sense? I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts into words right now. Just woke up. LOL
 
Top