LED Without LEDs -My First T5 Grow

ohiogrown03 Ya, 1 gallon is what I water 5 gallon of soil with and it works perfectly. I usually feed every water with very diluted solution (1/4 to 1/2). I'm sure it doesn't matter though.

Wow Ohio that is awesome. I think you have a green thumb, you should be telling us how to grow. I cant believe
you got that with one seed.

I am glad you are here Alter. I veg under T8s, with regaler bulbs. I don't think you need a lot of par for veg. But that is just
the way I do it. But flower is another thing.

Assassin , You are right. I think the professor put all the info you need in their some where?
I know this is a lot to read. but I cant remember all the bulb names.

I mean it is listed in the sig, but it doesn't specify exactly when and how many exactly..

PetFlora said:

Hyroot: Thanks. I am crystal now on when to use the Coral Wave. I did buy them for flower, but thought I could also use them for veg.

Click to expand...

I did the same thing. the first time i had 2 coral waves and 4 6500k bulbs. I had 2 foot bushy ones that were under a 400 hps then moved under the t5 with 2 corals waves. 2 days later they started flowering so I took one coral wave out and swapped it with the aquablue special from my flower. with one coral they were fine. i had to cut off little buds and topped the ones that I had fimmed. Then a few days ago I put a bunch of clones into soil at the end of the night. Then15 hours later there were buds on 3 different strains. not every one had flowered but quite a few did. i pulled that bulb out and threw in the stock 6500k bulb.

In a 6bulb ,I had 4 6500k bulbs, 1 aquablue special, 1 coral wave. 35% infrared is too much for veg apparently.


15 hour flowered

AssassinofYouth said:

pr0fesseur, I am thinking of running these bulbs in the New Wave-28 (my grow box is only 34 inches on the inside, I wish I could use a badboy)
I am not exactly trying to be lazy but do you think you could edit your first post for us, giving the bulbs to use and when? I am a noob to t5, and your thread is very large, although interesting, a lot of misinformation by others and what not.

I have a 4 bulb t5 setup for veg, and 8 bulb setup for flower..

I am expecting a read the thread noob response though.

Click to expand...

some one posted this before and i saved it so........


4 BULB - VEG = FIJI / RED / BLUE / FIJI ................................................BL OOM/FLOWER=SAME

6 BULB - VEG = FIJI / BLUE1 / 75.25 / FIJI / RED / BLUE2 .....................BLOOM/FLOWER = Replace 75.25 with RED

8 BULB - VEG = FIJI / RED / BLUE1 / 75.25 /FIJI / BLUE2 / RED / FIJI .....BLOOM/FLOWER = Replace 75.25 with RED

BLUE1 = UVL Super ACTINIC @ 420nm
BLUE2 = UVL 454nm
RED = UVL RED SUN 630nm
FIJI = KorallenZucht FIJI PURPLE 630nm & 440nm
75.25 = UVL 75.25 (VEG ONLY)


you can substitute coral waves for the blues during flower or if you rock a 2ft they still make the pro color for 2 ft.

DAY 56 sitting in dark til tomorrow when they get chopped mu whahahaha (dr. evil laugh)




Day 57 getting chopped in a week maybe longer

not trying to hijack the thread or step on prof's toes, but here is just a few of the things people(including myself) try to dig back through the thread to find. I DID NOT COME UP WITH ANY OF THE FOLLOWING, THIS IS ONLY REPLIES REPOSTED FROM PROF AND UNDERCURRENTDWC:

well again 60/40 r/g for bloom
vice versa for grow
Your gonna want 60/40 red/blue...the 2900k are yellow.... that really doesent help... actinics will stunt growth and prevent stretching... too much red and its all stretch..

newbs should stick with pr0fs bulbs/recommendations until they have a grow under their belt...
depending on your grow area i would suggest starting with an 8 bulb heres why ...
get an 8 bulb and populate only 4
when your plants start getting ready for bloom you can drop in another 4 and stagger your cost... i suggest owning a total of 10-12 bulbs that you can switch out for veg/bloom.
most fixtures have more than one switch if they dont theyre crap!... stay far away from the value fixtures... the ballasts are what your after ballasts are worth their weight in herb...

I cant stress enough the importance of the t5 with internal reflector....

12 bulbs you would probably want 3x4 bulb combinations or 4x3 bulb combinations...

something like this
for veg
fiji
actinic plus
454 or 75.25
F
A
4
F
A
4
F
A
4

or

F
A+
75
454
*repeat

Korallen Zucht Fiji Purple
UVL 454nm with internal reflector
UVL Red Suns/Red Life
ULV Super Actinic @ 420nm with internal reflector
UVL 75.25 with internal reflector
(end of reposted info)

a few of my own thoughts(yes me not pr0f so take it with a lot of salt), even though this is my first grow, i have had an outdoor veggie/herb/spice garden for about 5 years and seem to have a knack for this kind of stuff. Not trying to toot my own horn here, but I find if you read a lot about a topic and then use a little bit of your own intelligence and common sense and just go for it you can surprise yourself. In this scenario i'm not trying to sound like a dick but the order of the bulbs is not really going to make or break this kind of setup. Consider how many bulbs you have, remember the 60/40 Blue for veg, and 60/40 Red for bloom and divide try to space out evenly. Obviously if you might not have perfect spacing to fit the bulbs you need to get the 60/40 ratio you want, but i just did the best i could to alternate bulbs when i could.

Assassin, for 4 bulb, i'd maybe try the following (maybe even another 454,72/25,or actinic plus, but i think that might be a little too much blue for the 60/40 ratio)
fiji
actinic plus
454 or 75.25
fiji

I'd just go with what i have in bold unless prof or undercurrentdwc or someone who has a little more experience suggests something else. Thats the same order of bulbs i have in my 8 lamp, same order repeated twice basically. For the flower i have, (fiji, actinic plus, red, 75/25, fiji, red, 454, fiji). Working fine for me so far. As far as where to get bulbs and links, you now have names of bulbs above, just do some searching. not only for the bulb names, but for aquarium stores in your area. I've found it much easier to just go to an aquarium store thats only 40 minutes away and get the same bulbs without any shipping stress on bulbs, let alone cost. They even gave me 10% off my first order with them just because I told them I wanted to use a local shop rather than an internet distributor. A little bit of kissass and just being a friendly person can go a long way with a locally owned business. they still make money, you get a deal, everyone's happy.

sorry for getting sidetracked and i hope prof isn't upset for reposting some stuff i thought a lot of people are always looking for. There is a lot of science and interesting stuff in this thread that i won't even bother trying to repost or find the most important content out of those posts. There is just too much and it's all very important to what we are all looking for here. So while you can try and shortcut and find the key posts you need to keep going, you really should go back and read the thread post by post when you have time here and there so you can have some of the knowledge in your head so you can make some decisions based on what you read if you can't find exactly the same bulb or you find a new bulb that meets the criteria of what has been discussed here.

Thanks again prof for starting this thread and keeping it going smooth.

also real quick i was going to try and see what i can do to try and keep the top down a little by tying some string or whatever i can come up with to try and even the canopy out a little bit, i can do it during the "dark period" if i use a green flourescent right? i have regular "party" light or whatever you wanna call em that's green colored. I'm pretty sure i've read places that you can use one of these if you want to work in the room during the dark because the plant doesn't "see" it

ohiogrown03 said:

also real quick i was going to try and see what i can do to try and keep the top down a little by tying some string or whatever i can come up with to try and even the canopy out a little bit, i can do it during the "dark period" if i use a green flourescent right? i have regular "party" light or whatever you wanna call em that's green colored. I'm pretty sure i've read places that you can use one of these if you want to work in the room during the dark because the plant doesn't "see" it

Click to expand...

Personally I wouldn't do anything in the dark. All those green lights at the hydro shop advertise that plants don't use green spectrum and that's why plants appear green to us and the people who work at the hydro shop say the same thing. We all on this thread know plants use 20% to 30% of green spectrum.. Even though its a very narrow bandwith, I still would not use it in the dark.

I have friends who do use it and they don't listen to me. My stuff is better than theirs.

I just ordered a bunch of bulbs to use and experiment with. All of which were suggested at some point in this thread. Real anxious to try them out. Anyway, I only bought a couple different UVL bulbs and chose the ones W/O the internal reflector only because the aquarium guy said he didn't think it was necessary. I know the lighting company considers this an "upgrade" to the bulb.
ohiogrown03 why do you say the internal reflector is important when there is a reflector built into the fixture already? My fixture has individual reflectors for each bulb. Does it have to do with narrowing the beam to penetrate the leaves at the bottom?

ohiogrown03 said:

I cant stress enough the importance of the t5 with internal reflector....

Click to expand...

Well, I found this comment from an aquarium enthusiast on one of the reef forums, it looks like as long as you have a good reflector you don't need the internal one in the bulb: 2. Internal reflectors have an advantage where space is limited (AIO nanos for example), or when added to fixtures that start with very poor reflectors (like early generation FNI and Nova's). Would these compare to an ATI or Aquatinics reflector? No. Those reflectors will produce more usable light in a tank with standard bulbs than if you were to use bulbs with internal reflectors.



Anyway, just a heads up........

well i won't say for sure as i was only pointing out other comments in the thread, but i assume it has to do with light intensity and distance being an inverse square function.

hyroot said:

I did the same thing. the first time i had 2 coral waves and 4 6500k bulbs. I had 2 foot bushy ones that were under a 400 hps then moved under the t5 with 2 corals waves. 2 days later they started flowering so I took one coral wave out and swapped it with the aquablue special from my flower. with one coral they were fine. i had to cut off little buds and topped the ones that I had fimmed. Then a few days ago I put a bunch of clones into soil at the end of the night. Then15 hours later there were buds on 3 different strains. not every one had flowered but quite a few did. i pulled that bulb out and threw in the stock 6500k bulb.

In a 6bulb ,I had 4 6500k bulbs, 1 aquablue special, 1 coral wave. 35% infrared is too much for veg apparently.


15 hour flowered
View attachment 1914538View attachment 1914554

Click to expand...

Dang... alright, well, I've got some 6500k bulbs, I'll put those in in place of the waves for veg I guess... crud, I bought them specifically because I thought I could use them for both periods.

The professor sead the internal reflector, gives you more bang ,out of your bulb. They are just better.

You got any pics for us Altar? We love to see the girl's.

I put up some pretty recently, but I am gonna take some new ones soon to get some assessments on ripeness anyway. My last batch of pics was on like, pg 120 i think.

I am sure I saw those . I have read every page. And I love this T5 shit.

Oh yea I am glad you are still here .

Lights will be on in ten minutes so I can check on the girls be for I go to work.