LED Without LEDs -My First T5 Grow

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overTHEman

Active Member
PAR T5ers,

First, I apologize for getting off topic.

Second, a local pet store is selling Coralife bulbs. The Colormax, 10,000k, and Actinic are available for $13 each.

Does anyone have experience with any of these bulbs? What did you think?
 
okthanks2

okthanks2

Active Member
overTHEman said:
PAR T5ers,

First, I apologize for getting off topic.

Second, a local pet store is selling Coralife bulbs. The Colormax, 10,000k, and Actinic are available for $13 each.

Does anyone have experience with any of these bulbs? What did you think?
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Ya, I use the 6500K bulbs, they work very well
 
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Lucius Vorenus

Well-Known Member
Chalk me up to another guy that got fucked on the Amazon deal through Hydro Galaxy using Sunlight as their drop shipper.

They said they are going to make good on the deal and will send an RMA and fix the situation once Sunlight Supply is done with their inventory.
 
PetFlora

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
I believe Amazon will step in on your behalf, but you gotta let them know.

Hey I saw some awesome aquarium bulb buds on Club T5 that I haven't seen here. WTF guys? Pr0f deserves them to be posted here.
 
C

Calrt

Member
Day 19 update, they have done great since day 10, all 4 Red suns still looks good too....It looks like the HPS is now growing larger then the T5s....as of today I pulled my 2 coral waves out and replaced them with a Fiji and a 454. I am wondering if the Coral Waves can give them a good flowing jump start but not great at keeping them going with the far red and deep blue. The T5s were flowering faster the first 15 days. I wish I knew what the Fijis were so i could try to match the missing spectrum's! Maybe I was missing that 450nm range and the Fijis are closer to the CW blue spectrum in the 420nm range?

Strain: Lemon Kush
Lights: 600w air cooled HPS eye Hortalux with a digital ballast.
T5 Bad Boy 8 bulb with 4 Red Suns, 3 Fijis, 1 454
Temps with the lights on 75-77 degrees Off around 62-65
RH 23-30
 

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pr0fesseur

pr0fesseur

Well-Known Member
hyroot said:
check out these t5's they run for the same price as badboys. they run on 120 and 240 also and are linkable. I first read about these lights in maximum yield


http://www.mavericksun.com/mother-ho-t5-fluorescent/




I found pricing on a site called http://www.newerasupply.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=37_60&products_id=96

could not find any reviews on that shop. i emailed maverick sun though.
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:cuss:I would stay AWAY form anything that links together... ESPECIALLY with a ballast! why you may ask? well simple answer...
DIRTY POWER! (line noise) & Surge!!!!
one ballast faulting can take out another, cheap ballasts are sensitive to line noise and small surges, remember ladies and gents the electronic ballasts dont like to be faulted... a small surge would cause the ballast to "hot start" and thereby degrade or fail..
can you imagine a cascade hotstart? i shudder to think of it... EVERY BALLAST/FIXTURE deserves its own CLEAN POWER SOURCE....

http://www.amazon.com/APC-LE600-Automatic-Voltage-Regulator/dp/B00009RA5Z
 
Gastanker

Gastanker

Well-Known Member
pr0fesseur said:
:cuss:I would stay AWAY form anything that links together... ESPECIALLY with a ballast! why you may ask? well simple answer...
DIRTY POWER! (line noise) & Surge!!!!
one ballast faulting can take out another, cheap ballasts are sensitive to line noise and small surges, remember ladies and gents the electronic ballasts dont like to be faulted... a small surge would cause the ballast to "hot start" and thereby degrade or fail..
can you imagine a cascade hotstart? i shudder to think of it... EVERY BALLAST/FIXTURE deserves its own CLEAN POWER SOURCE....

http://www.amazon.com/APC-LE600-Automatic-Voltage-Regulator/dp/B00009RA5Z
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That is super confusing. So a single bulb t5 is one ballast, a 2 bulb is two ballasts linked together - each ballast still fires separately and each goes through a softstart if its ballast is a softstart ballast, if one ballast fails it has no impact at all on the other ballast - why is this 2 bulb fixture worse than the 1 bulb fixture? Are you saying that 8 bulb badboys are bad? They have a bunch of ballasts in parallel. How would linking in parallel create dirty energy?

8 single bulb t5 fixtures plugged into the same power strip is equivalent to 8 single bulb t5 fixtures linked to each other in parallel...
 
Redoctober

Redoctober

Well-Known Member
Red Suns FUCKING BLOW!!! Who the fuck built these things! Did they manufacture them with their ass! I ordered 8 of them because of all the bad reports so I knew I'd need extras. Out of the 4 I had in 2 separate fixtures, the one in my Badboy has already failed completely, and ALL THREE in my New Wave have bad shadow spots on them. I twisted them around 180 degrees to try to use the other sides, and now the shadows have appeared there too. I'll probably lose all 3 within the week. So after 1 week with these bulbs, NOT A SINGLE ONE is working properly. WTF! I feel like we are all completely trapped with the Red Suns, as there doesn't seem to be any other bulb to replace it for flower. I know it is not my fixture that's causing the problem because I have two completely different ones.

Has anyone tried the Quantum 2900K flower bulbs? I know we don't have a spectrum for those either, and I'm sure Quantum won't release it, but I'm ready to try anything else at this point. It's going to get VERY expensive to keep having to pay shipping costs to return these piece of shit Red Suns. I haven't even contacted Marine Depot yet to see if they'll even take em back.

I know we don't have much choice, but I'd stay away from Red Suns. They're just a giant headache
 
A

Arabic

Well-Known Member
First I'd like to say I'm currently on page 97 of this thread and intend on reading it all, but I think I've found the best 48" T5 that covers the best red spectrum.. after some looking.

we know that chlorophyll A and B peaks at 642nm and 662nm, check out this bulbAquaMedicPlantabulb.jpg

It's by Aquamedic, its called a "Planta" bulb. http://www.aqua-medic.com/t5_bulbs.shtml googling it brings up plenty of discussions about this light on aquarium forums, it's been around for a while! I think this is pr0f's secret bulb? ;)

Also I don't know why so many are suggesting the 454's and 75.25's, they Suck imo. And since we don't know the spectral distribution of that fuji purple, we don't know what it is doing. So I'd say toss that out too and go with ATI Blue Plus (for 450nm) and UVL Super Actinic (for 435nm) since those two ensure the blue spectrum is covered for both Cholorophyll at the blue end. I GUESS you could change out the Super Actinic for the Coral Wave if you think light at 740-780nm is beneficial, even at the sacrifice of like 35-40% of the bulb. But the fact that 100% of your light is nearly peaking at 420nm make the super actinic and blue plus great. Even though you have the charts you all have bulbs with high spikes of useless colors (454, 72.25, red sun) What's your reasoning behind those bulbs?

As for red, I'd have to see what you guys think about that Planta bulb, I think the Red Suns are garbage, you need red light that peaks at 640nm and 660nm, if you look at Red Sun charts you would see that ALL of the red is lost at 640nm... making them useless.

I think you should replace the rest with 6500k grow bulbs... any spectrums on those?


Edit: looked around a bit and found Aquafloro by Gieseman. It'd be good for completing the spectrum in a "veg" combination.


I veg for 1 month currently under my 8 bulb T5.. I'm putting a divider inbetween next cycle and changing 4 of the bulbs for the best veg combo and IMO that would be

1 ATI Blue Plus
1 UBL Super Actinic
1 Aquafloro
1 undecided... But I am so desperate to test the Fiji under a spectroradiometer. Anyone have one layin around? :dunce:
 
Undercover Cop

Undercover Cop

Active Member
Redoctober said:
Red Suns FUCKING BLOW!!! Who the fuck built these things! Did they manufacture them with their ass! I ordered 8 of them because of all the bad reports so I knew I'd need extras. Out of the 4 I had in 2 separate fixtures, the one in my Badboy has already failed completely, and ALL THREE in my New Wave have bad shadow spots on them. I twisted them around 180 degrees to try to use the other sides, and now the shadows have appeared there too. I'll probably lose all 3 within the week. So after 1 week with these bulbs, NOT A SINGLE ONE is working properly. WTF! I feel like we are all completely trapped with the Red Suns, as there doesn't seem to be any other bulb to replace it for flower. I know it is not my fixture that's causing the problem because I have two completely different ones.

Has anyone tried the Quantum 2900K flower bulbs? I know we don't have a spectrum for those either, and I'm sure Quantum won't release it, but I'm ready to try anything else at this point. It's going to get VERY expensive to keep having to pay shipping costs to return these piece of shit Red Suns. I haven't even contacted Marine Depot yet to see if they'll even take em back.

I know we don't have much choice, but I'd stay away from Red Suns. They're just a giant headache
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Kelly from aquarium specialty said she's had 8 different customers recently have issues (and is currently out and has no more to send), and she said UVL told her they've had no complaints yet. Ive been looking at the geiseman Aquaflora and the Aquamedic Planta (Geiseman makes Aquamedic's bulbs) Ill prob have AS replace my shitty Red Suns with Fiji's just so I have some to compare.

edit... lmfao I wrote this while Arabic was posting his about the plantas lol. Good call Arabic
 
hyroot

hyroot

Well-Known Member
I know how electricity works. it moves like water path of least resistance. I had to take electrician classes when I as going to audio school. Prof so long as its grounded and you have a surge suppressor or an uninterupted power supply, using copper or nickel (best) wiring you will be fine. Dont ever use gold wiring. Uts more susceptable to power surges and frequency interference. I had hydrofarms and sunblazes linking all together for over a year and nothing ever happened. Now the badboys. If they linked togetjer then maybe that would happen since they are so half ass built.

back in school wed to deal with and learn to prevent and repai thousands of watts on over a million dollars worth of studio equipment. Mixing console, racks, and computers. same thing applied to that. Those put out a gnarly amount of heat. Ac had to run 24/7.
 
A

Arabic

Well-Known Member
also look up the aqua medic ocean blues.. they have high peaks at 400-450nm. usually you'd need two bulbs to hit both of those (one at 430nm and one at 450nm). Damn.. so many possibilities. These aqua medics seem golden though, right?

http://www.aqua-medic.com/t5_bulbs.shtml

I feel like I've unearthed gold, is the ocean blue not the perfect Blue spectrum? as well as the right? 3 ocean blue 1 planta for veg, we don't need a broad spectrum. we need a LOT of a small spectrum.


waiting to see what others say before I buy these, with my luck it'll be one of those shitty specialty bulbs Pr0f was talking about way earlier
 
A

Arabic

Well-Known Member
Undercover Cop

Undercover Cop

Active Member
falcon223 said:
I got these. Are these the red suns, that everyone is having trouble with ???
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no those are by WavePoint, they're basically a tri-band red heavy full spectrum bulb, blue/green/red. UV Lighting Red Sun's are almost all Red, but they're booty, avoid em, I'd say go w the phillips or sylvania reds if you need a red bulb. IMHO, fuck UVL. I have the Red Waves, rather pinkish bulb, good for the price but nothing unique.
 
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