UV Suppliment Lighting

Warpedpassage said:

Is that the flower power floro from solacure? If so thats great you were able to run up to 4 hours a day. One of the plants i ran just an hour and half a day, and it was too much. The plant flower structure , color, terpene content , and yield changed. And not for the better. On that plant, i preferred it without u.vb. It was a bubba kush cross, with a bubba dominat pheno.
The other plant was a more extreme sat pheno of o haze x punto rojo. She was loving it, i was forced to chop her early at 16 weeks of flower. And she still wiped the floor with most stuff you could find on the market. In fact it was too strong and very muddy, disorienting kind of effect. Also about 20 inch above tops.
I only used the solacure once so have not felt compelled to share this info since i really want to get more runs with it before i say something with some confidence.

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daveybc said:

@oldbeancounter "HLG" Remember HGL/Cammie is owned by someone who threatened to rat out a grower...HLG are the good guy's.

I talked to Dennis at Solacure for 20 min. He is certainly sales oriented but loves to talk which is nice from an owner. He believes in his product. Here is some bullet form comments I recall:

-The goal is to have at least 2 hrs solid. Did not mater what time of day, just when your were not in the garden. He mentioned a client had scheduled a wrong time and the UV was coming on at "lights off" to no ill effect.
-Pulsing 15 min increments would not benefit powder mildew and insects resistance as much, but would help with resin production.
-UV doesn't reflect or penetrate, rather hits its line of fire and resin will be produced in that area. He thought coming in on an angle would work good. The other side of the buds will be less frosty. The light has special glass and a built in reflector and you could tilt it.
-Use at the start of flower all the way. I don't recall a ramp up, that may be obvious though.
-If PM/insects is a concern use during veg.
- Use 4 foot tube as it is less intense. Can be used 18-24" above canopy, 2 foot Solacure tube more intense ( same intensity as the 4 foot but smaller package)

Solacure post some of their stuff on FB. Not active on IG.

Now I would love to buy both HLG UVA and some UVA/UVB from Solacure but I am in Canada. I am still recovering from my wounds of 4 QB96e and drivers. 1.37% exchange and "High Prices" shipping. And don't

So for now I would get HLG UVA strip x 2, or Solacure Flower Power UVA/UVB x 2. I am thinking I would benefit more from Solacure.. Thoughts?[/
@daveybc
you asked me
"So for now I would get HLG UVA strip x 2, or Solacure Flower Power UVA/UVB x 2. I am thinking I would benefit more from Solacure.. Thoughts?"
Once I get the HLG UVA strip and try it I will know, but until then I just can't honestly answer.
I just ordered one HLG UVA light last night.
I asked HLG for a spec chart too on RUI, hopefully HLG posts one.
Would I buy the bulb again, yes in a heartbeat.
here is pic I pulled from solocure's facebook, you be the judge.
I can give you the total cost with shipping via PM if you like as I am in Canada too.

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oldbeancounter said:

@Warpedpassage
"flower power floro from solacure" yes that is what I have.
It is a tricky sernio, too much kills em and to little hurts smell-terpenes-THC content.
I can see it hurting certain plants if not used carefully.
Where would one buy good Punto Rojo seeds ?

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Warpedpassage said:

I purchased the punto rojo from euro seedbank a few years ago, and crossed a male punto rojo to an original haze female. Just a tiny male in a 16 ounce cup sitting in the kitchen, i collected a bit of pollen and hit a bottom branch. Just on a whim, nothing planned. Got about 30ish seeds.

For simliar genetics i believe someone going by snowhigh has a bunch of simliar crosses, including punto rojo crosses. He seems to have a good rep. Im not sure if punto rojo is available by itself at the moment.

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oldbeancounter said:

@Warpedpassage
"flower power floro from solacure" yes that is what I have.
It is a tricky sernio, too much kills em and to little hurts smell-terpenes-THC content.
I can see it hurting certain plants if not used carefully.
Where would one buy good Punto Rojo seeds ?

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oldbeancounter said:

@daveybc
My bad, meant HLG, it is fixed now thanks.
Good to know about the 4 foot vers the two foot bulbs.
Never spoke to Dennis on phone just via email.
Ordered four bulbs, he send 5 which suits me fine, all very well packed.
I have some literature he sent to will try and find it and scan and upload.
I think the bulbs help even in veg personally, just go easier on them that's all.
Maybe 1 hour twice a day, once you flip all 2 hours then work up too as much as plants will take.
Don't use facebook but will look.
these are bulbs I purchased, four bulbs 4 feet long, bought ballasts at homedepot in canada for $20.00 for a double bulb light.
https://www.solacure.com/superb.html

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Randomblame said:

You'll see a good effect already with 2x 1h per day. No need to increase it until you see first signs of damage! These bulbs are really strong and you can expect at least 100mW 20" below the bulbs(probably up to 150).
Agromax says 170μW/cm² @2' distance. Solacure mentioned 750μW/cm² at 20w dead center(what ever this means) it sounds they are at least in the same ballpark.
200μW/cm² per day is already a dose of 7,2kJ/m² per day(multiplicated by 0,036) and the Solacure light hits the UVR8 receptor directly which has the highest thc increasing effect. You need probably up to 10h with reptile bulbs to get the same effect because they have only 295nm but no 285nm UVB! So 2h @20" are already a lot...!

Below is a pdf ...
To make it short they have used 0, 6,7 and 13,4kJ/m² per day and found a linear increase in thc production but they have used a quarz burner + UVC filter and no such bulbs.
It's possible that you can increase it even more with more UVB but you have seen already that more like 4h are too much and cause damage. Without a meter its almost impossible to calculate the daily dose. Especially with more bulbs distributed over a bigger area you get the highest numbers directly below the bulbs and you need to keep a certain distance between the bulbs to have enough overlapping light to get even UV distribution across the whole area. A UVB meter would help a lot btw.
A good UVB meter costs ~200 bucks and one that measures UVA and B separately (with switch) costs 250-300$.
Forget the ones which measures UV index they are for humans and measure wideband UV.

The 1st sign of UV stress always look like heat stress. The upper fan leaves are at first affected and show slightly curled up leaf margins. Sometime you also see twisted leaves at the top of the plant. A little heat stress is what we want but not that much that it cause a damage. With the right amount the leaves will harden up and they also feel harder when you touch them. Problem is each strain reacts different and you have to figure out the maximum again and again.
In veg there is also no need to use UVB but it makes sense to harden them up right before you switch to 12/12. You can also harden them up later and use it only for the last few weeks but I think it has the best effect when they are used to UVB when they start to form the first trichomes.

The Solacure bulbs are probably the best currently. But we will soon see more UV LED's because there is a higher demand now. Because of its taste, vitamin and nutrient increasing effects on food its also interesting for the food industry and I'm pretty sure we will soon see LED lamps with UVA and B. Or_Gro has shared the link below with me a few weeks ago so the first ones are already planned and should be available sometime.

https://www.agricultra.com/secondarymetabolite

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Randomblame said:

Yeah, the Agromax pureUV bulbs are too strong to use them at the same height as your LED's. They need at least 24" and even then 1h can already be too much for UV sensitive strains. Better 28-30" but then you have your mainlights in the way.

I recommend to either use the Agromax powerveg+ bulbs (for US peeps) or the Arcadia D3dragon with 14% UVB/30% UVA (for EU growers). They both have almost the same spectrum and UV strength and their optimal hanging height is 12-16".

285nm is not UVC, the UVC range starts at 280nm(US) or 275nm(EU) depending who you ask. The problem is a UVB diode with peak wavelength 285nm would have a lower dominant wavelength and some light is probably already UVC. Even the Agromax pureUV bulbs have some light in the UVC range and that's the main reason why they are so damaging.
The UVR8 receptor in MJ responds to wavelength from 280-300nm (which is the lowest wavelength you'll find even in 3000m above 0) and the peak response it at 285nm. Maybe with the right filter coating one could remove the wavelength below 285nm but that's unneccessary.
The Arcadia and powerveg+ spectrum ends already at around 290-295nm. It takes longer to get the same response but you can usually use them all day long as soon as the plants are used to their light. This takes usually only around a week.

I've used a 12% d3desert Arcadia bulb with 12" distance for 12h per day, no issues!
I've used a 2ft bulb in a small 3sft chamber for 8h at 8" distance, also no issues!
In both cases the UVB dose was at least 40 fu.... kJ/m² and the only thing visible was a little heatstress on the upper leaves. Ah,... and of course an impressive thichome layer.

Because I already own 6 of these Agromax pureUV bulbs I will try to use them with a dimmable T5 ballast before I sell the new ones. Maybe I can figure out a way to use them without damaging the plants. Depends on how the bulbs behave when dimmed down but I will only found out it when I try it. The parts are already here I only need to find the time to replace the current ballast. And then it needs at least one or two test runs.

So if you don't want tops looking like these I strongly recommend to stay with 12 or 14% reptile bulbs. These 75/25% UVB/A pure UV bulbs have the plant shocked so hard that the whole run has finished with ~25% less than usual.

View attachment 4310788

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oldbeancounter said:

@Randomblame
I was be to dim the solocure bulbs with this
https://www.amazon.ca/Portable-Variable-Transformer-Voltage-Regulator/dp/B07CB4LKB3/ref=asc_df_B07BWD2Q4Q/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292994005156&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15749873701832092086&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001073&hvtargid=pla-538610277508&th=1

not saying it wise but it worked LOL

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oldbeancounter said:

@Randomblame
I was be to dim the solocure bulbs with this
https://www.amazon.ca/Portable-Variable-Transformer-Voltage-Regulator/dp/B07CB4LKB3/ref=asc_df_B07BWD2Q4Q/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292994005156&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15749873701832092086&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001073&hvtargid=pla-538610277508&th=1

not saying it wise but it worked LOL

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Randomblame said:

Yeah, these bulbs run with ac voltage. Reduce input voltage and you reduce output voltage too. There are also dimmable ballasts but they are hard to find. Do you use the Solacure ballast or a different T8 ballast?
I've only found a dimmable T5 ballast but these are electronic not magnetic ballasts. But nice to know that it works with a variac. Makes things much easier. For my T5 ballast I need a 1-10v dimmer which means I need an additional power supply or have to power the dimmer with ac too. The dimmer I have can luckily use both 12-24vdc or 120/240vac to create the 1-10v needed for dimming and its complicated to dimm more bulbs in once. But with a variac you can dimm a bunch of bulbs in once easily.

Do not over do it with the tomato seedling. If you start with a lower dose I'm pretty sure the seedling can handle it..
I've used a little 11w CFL with C. seedlings and have not seen any issues but it was a 10.0 Reptisun bulb.

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Keesje said:

I think this might also be an interesting study for you blue-boys

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4260232/#b14

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daveybc said:

How many watts did each fixture have? How many watts per bulb?

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Randomblame said:

Interesting stuff! So when using a wide range of blue light from 400-500nm it should kill a wide range of insects. White LED's have already blue from ~430-500nm so we only need to add some near UVA(400-420nm) and we should get less problems with insects. There is typ. a hole in the cyan range with white LED so maybe we need to add both 410 and 470nm it to make it work.
With the usually used intensities there should be plenty of blue even if the spectrum has 3000 or 3500°k. 10% of 400-800μMol/s is 40-80 and much more as the researchers have used in this tests.
Good think with reptile bulbs is they have a few additional spikes in the blue and green range and together with white LED the desinfecting effect should be even stronger. Even the Agromax bulbs have some visible blue and I'm pretty sure there is also a little blue spike in the solacure spectrum and some light in the 380-430nm range

View attachment 4342740

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oldbeancounter said:

@Or_Gro
I actually used the solacure at first to see how much a plant can handle before major damage occurred.
I ran one 48 inch bulb at 32 watts 20 inches above plant a skittles-glue knockoff for 2 hours twice a day(worked slowly up to this).
Can't give you the uW/sq cm as no idea how to work that out?
Plant is in area 5 by 5 feet but is open room so no reflection or exact sq footage is available yet
I would not go over 2 hours at that distance(twice a day) .
Started one hour, then 2 hours twice over 16 hours after a week.
Then moved to 4 hours twice a day(16 hour light on) and observed heavy leaf damage so be careful.
Plants do smell more and there is some light leaf damage so you will really have to keep and eye on them till you get an idea of the power as they can burn leaves and you.
I have decided to run 4 solocure bulbs over 45 sq feet at 20 inches but wont start till seeds I planted get a little bit of size to them say 6 inches high. I can adjust my ballast to run little lower, at about 25 watts they go off for a T-8 @ 48 inches so about 100 watts of solocure UVB to start and slowly ramp it up till damage occurs then back off from there.
I did notice a light sheen on one leaf(why one who knows) it was sticky, must have been from plant , smelled very strong too like skunk.
I have not a full grow with these though, moflow have used them more.
They work for sure. I am not an experienced indoor gardener( but outside I was(not pot) so I know this is replicating the sun as the results are clear for me at least.
Looking forward to trying the UVA from HLG
Please take this with a grain of salt as till they run in my tent it will be hard to say how much UVB they actually got but it certainly works to increase smell of plants and production of sap or whatever it was I saw of leaf which was kinda like tree sap in look very shiny and sticky.
best thing I bought lately that's for sure, highly recommend.
If you find out uW/sq cm moflow is using let me know I'm curious.
Also check out the plants he grew with them included, I am no expert but they look very high THC judging by trichomes.

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Randomblame said:

You'll see a good effect already with 2x 1h per day. No need to increase it until you see first signs of damage! These bulbs are really strong and you can expect at least 100mW 20" below the bulbs(probably up to 150).
Agromax says 170μW/cm² @2' distance. Solacure mentioned 750μW/cm² at 20w dead center(what ever this means) it sounds they are at least in the same ballpark.
200μW/cm² per day is already a dose of 7,2kJ/m² per day(multiplicated by 0,036) and the Solacure light hits the UVR8 receptor directly which has the highest thc increasing effect. You need probably up to 10h with reptile bulbs to get the same effect because they have only 295nm but no 285nm UVB! So 2h @20" are already a lot...!

Below is a pdf ...
To make it short they have used 0, 6,7 and 13,4kJ/m² per day and found a linear increase in thc production but they have used a quarz burner + UVC filter and no such bulbs.
It's possible that you can increase it even more with more UVB but you have seen already that more like 4h are too much and cause damage. Without a meter its almost impossible to calculate the daily dose. Especially with more bulbs distributed over a bigger area you get the highest numbers directly below the bulbs and you need to keep a certain distance between the bulbs to have enough overlapping light to get even UV distribution across the whole area. A UVB meter would help a lot btw.
A good UVB meter costs ~200 bucks and one that measures UVA and B separately (with switch) costs 250-300$.
Forget the ones which measures UV index they are for humans and measure wideband UV.

The 1st sign of UV stress always look like heat stress. The upper fan leaves are at first affected and show slightly curled up leaf margins. Sometime you also see twisted leaves at the top of the plant. A little heat stress is what we want but not that much that it cause a damage. With the right amount the leaves will harden up and they also feel harder when you touch them. Problem is each strain reacts different and you have to figure out the maximum again and again.
In veg there is also no need to use UVB but it makes sense to harden them up right before you switch to 12/12. You can also harden them up later and use it only for the last few weeks but I think it has the best effect when they are used to UVB when they start to form the first trichomes.

The Solacure bulbs are probably the best currently. But we will soon see more UV LED's because there is a higher demand now. Because of its taste, vitamin and nutrient increasing effects on food its also interesting for the food industry and I'm pretty sure we will soon see LED lamps with UVA and B. Or_Gro has shared the link below with me a few weeks ago so the first ones are already planned and should be available sometime.

https://www.agricultra.com/secondarymetabolite

Click to expand...

oldbeancounter said:

@Randomblame
I was be to dim the solocure bulbs with this
https://www.amazon.ca/Portable-Variable-Transformer-Voltage-Regulator/dp/B07CB4LKB3/ref=asc_df_B07BWD2Q4Q/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292994005156&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15749873701832092086&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001073&hvtargid=pla-538610277508&th=1

not saying it wise but it worked LOL

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Or_Gro said:

@Randomblame tells me research has shown that that ~285nm is the optimal wavelength, at which you only need minutes/day of exposure. Since tubes/diodes at this wavelength areapparently not avsilable, wd can approximate the effect by using higher nm uvb light gor longer durations.

The questions for me is which tube(s) balances the benefit with the damage of uvb, and at what exposure intensity and duration.

Sounds like you have a dimmable ballast, an absolute must, imo, for these very strong uvb tubes. At this level of intensity you really need a meter to do the job well without damage, again imo.

I use this:

View attachment 4342754

I’ll leave the technical duscussion to @Randomblame, and i guess, @Moflow.

From what I’ve read, tho, solacure is the strongest tube available...i haven’t used them.

But i’ve used the agromax pure uv, and they are just too, damn strong.

In my current grow (2nd link in sig) i used the arcadia 14% uvb, i ramped by 15 min intervals to 6 hours each day. I ran them fir ful fliwering oeriid, without visible damage.

I didn’t get my plants lab tested, but believe based on comparison with other bud grown under the same setup & conditions, except for the uv, that the arcadias did their job well.

Goid luck with the solacures, think about getting a meter so that you can quantify what works and what doesn’t, intensitywise.

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Or_Gro said:

I’ve used uvc on powdery mildew...does the job, but gotta be careful with exposure duration (more than a few seconds causes damage).

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