using UVB indoors

Has anyone used UVB indoors, i was wondering how many lights needed and how far from plant do they need to be, are they stronger than CFL's as far as distance needed to be from plant? couple of other questions so if you have experience please help and comment.

UVB is only a supplement, to both hps and cfl, its only a very small fraction of a spectrum, and one that dosent grow a plant, it only matures chems over to THC and helps stress to pack on resin.

he was right u can grow with them get cfl or hps or metal halide or 4 ft cfl man

dont mind babyboi - he's just trying to increase his post count - he's posted in about every thread tonight... sometimes just jibberish.

i use the UVB in my grow room, i have the lights hooked up to a door switch so when i open the door all the UV turns off - its bad for your eyes to look at... it can give you "welders eye" if you look at it too close or for too long....

the UV lights most ppl put in their grow room are either tanning bed bulbs, or reptile lights... you can get them in CFL, or regular fluorescent... they do not replace any other lights. I run them for 5 hrs a day, in the middle of the light cycle... this doesnt "stress" the plant, but it is supposed to help create more THC in the trichome heads... and create more trichomes to protect the leaf from the damaging uv rays...

some people say it is worthless, but i think it cant hurt... and the best herb from around the world is from areas with high amounts of UV rays... with uv index in the 10-11 range.. (the only way the measure uv)...

here are some charts from the 26w UVB CFL reptile light that i started with... shows UV index with light in a reflector.



and with no reflector


i have 2 of the CFLs in reflectors, and i shine them across the top of my canopy... but I dont let the plants get closer than 12" from the bulb or they will crisp. i also use an 18" fluorescent tube, which emits a much more even amount of UV, it does not get as strong up close to the bulb, and it keeps everything within about 2ft of it in UV 10 zone...

hope that helps

I was thinking of using some supplemental UV bulbs, figure it wouldn't hurt, didn't know the reptile lights were available in CFL form now +rep, used to have to get the incandescent, and those suck.

Plus the 48" fluorescent tubes are pretty expensive right?

What kind of cost are we talking, because I could definately get 8 tubes and add them in between my HPS hoods... If they will still help at 24" plus away. I have a large garden, so I might just get a few aand surround one light to see if there's any differance. Just a thought.

thanks a bunch it seems to be worth the investment