UV Results from the community.

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
Hey guys.
By now, multiple users here are adding UV bulbs to their LED setups, whether it be reptile bulbs or the agromax pure UV bulbs. I'm curious to get some feedback on your results and findings with using them.
- What were your lengths of time having it on, what parts of the growth cycle and did you see anything noticeable?

Thanks for any and all information.
 

PrometheanLeaf

Well-Known Member
http://www.solacure.com/horticulture.html

Links to articles. All their lamps have 100% satisfaction, or your money back.

Stephen from HLG suggested 5% of total light wattage be uv-b, between 2-4 hours daily, the last three weeks of flower. He also did warm that the tops of the plants have a tendency to mature faster than the lower buds on the plants which is why he suggested just the last three weeks.

I believe hlg was even making a prototype of the 550 that incorporates the flower power bulbs from solacure into the fixture.

I intend to add them to my grow in 5-15 minute increments that will add up to the 5% total daily kWh of light, a day for all of flower. (My friends garden has had great success with this method as well but with agromax bulbs.) But I'll be vegging under cmh so they will have uv-b their entire life from seed to cloned sog run. Hopefully the sog will avoid the varying maturity levels.
 

KrazyG

Well-Known Member
I use a reptile T8 bulb, started with 4hr when I flipped to 12/12.
Over a couple of weeks I gradually increased to 8hrs.
Had to make adjustments to height, started showing light stress but after that no probs.
I noticed a lot more trichs and the final result was better tasting smoke and a lot stickier than the previous grow without UV.
I'm still not 100% sure if that was down to the UV or the fact that I got a longer dry.
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
From my experience additional UVB works great. I'm using 2 Agromax 2ft. bulbs for my bloom area and Arcadia reptile bulbs with 12% UVB for my little veg area. It makes sense to harden them up against UVB so they get used to it from the beginning. To use it only for the last few weeks can cause some serious issues especially when you use the more powerful Agromax or Solacure bulbs. The hardening process takes around a week. Imagine you want to put a houseplant outside in full sunlight. She will need a shady spot at the beginning until she gets used to the sun's UVA/UVB radiation. With UVB its almost the same.
Reptile bulbs can be used all day long together with the mainlight. I'm using the last veg week to harden the plants up and start with 2+2h UVB treatment. From bloom week 3 or 4 (when the plants start to show the first trichomes) I start to increase it slowly untill they get the full 12h for the last two weeks.
Agromax and Solacure are 5 times stronger and their light extends a little deeper into the UVB range. Reptile bulbs have also only very little UVB output below 300nm, Agromax and Solucure spectrum goes down to 280nm. For this reason a reptile bulb needs much more time to trigger the UVR8 receptor. The lower the wavelength the more energy a photon transports. That means a 280nm photon has much more energy than a 300nm photon. For this reason it is impossible to use these bulbs for 12 hours without getting heat stress. You also need twice as much distance and you should split the 1-2 hours UVB treatment to 4x 15-30 minutes to avoid heatstress and wilting leaves.

The test results below are with and without UVB and show a significant improvement in thc content. Plants getting UVB are also more colorful especially purple strains look more beautiful. The terpene profile will also change and a plant getting UVA/B smells different like the same plant getting no UVA/B.

I like the Solacure bulbs because of their built in reflectors but the old T12 standard is outdated and siutable balast are rare.
The Agromax bulbs use the latest T5 standard and siutable ballasts are widely available. You can also use dimmable T5 ballasts which is a huge benefit because each strain tolerates a different amount of UVB light.

I have currently 5 mostly sativas in my little cab, 3 of them tolerate less UVB and already show heat stress while the other two have no problems. Distance is 16-20" and bulbs are on 3 times the day for 25 minutes. Most of the damage occurred when I tried to give them 2x 2h around day 30. Since then I've reduced it to 3 times 25 minutes and hardly any new damage has occurred till now. Currently its day 47 and I expect another 3-5 weeks.

This is an Amnesia x BlueDream cross(F1) and you can see upwards curled fan leaves. She has nice white and orange pistels from the beginning.
AxBD, this one has the most issues.jpg

This one is a BlueDream and she is at least 4-6" higher compared to the AxBD cross above.
No heat stress, no curled leaves... she looks like she needs another 5 weeks.

BD, highest tops but no heat stress.jpg
 

Attachments

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
http://www.solacure.com/horticulture.html

Links to articles. All their lamps have 100% satisfaction, or your money back.

Stephen from HLG suggested 5% of total light wattage be uv-b, between 2-4 hours daily, the last three weeks of flower. He also did warm that the tops of the plants have a tendency to mature faster than the lower buds on the plants which is why he suggested just the last three weeks.

I believe hlg was even making a prototype of the 550 that incorporates the flower power bulbs from solacure into the fixture.

I intend to add them to my grow in 5-15 minute increments that will add up to the 5% total daily kWh of light, a day for all of flower. (My friends garden has had great success with this method as well but with agromax bulbs.) But I'll be vegging under cmh so they will have uv-b their entire life from seed to cloned sog run. Hopefully the sog will avoid the varying maturity levels.
CMH has only a few percent UVA but no UVB, brother. There is no radiation between 275 and 320nm only in the UVA range 320-400nm there is a little spike.
 

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
Ya I've been back and forth for 2 years now on buying the agromax. I was the first person to bring them to light to this forum. Growmau5 found out about them from me too.
I just never did it. I just never had enough real data to make a decision. I still don't.
 

MichiganMedGrower

Well-Known Member
CMH has only a few percent UVA but no UVB, brother. There is no radiation between 275 and 320nm only in the UVA range 320-400nm there is a little spike.

I wasn't involved here. Just reading through but cmh has a bit of uvb.

Linked chart shows stats of many light sources including the sun tested at the university of utah.

https://www.cycloptics.com/sites/default/files/No Utah State Spectral Characterization Study.pdf

I am aware it is reprinted on a cmh selling company site. I cant find the original artical anymore.
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
Ya I've been back and forth for 2 years now on buying the agromax. I was the first person to bring them to light to this forum. Growmau5 found out about them from me too.
I just never did it. I just never had enough real data to make a decision. I still don't.
Hmm!!
Hard to believe that, bro. A quick forum wide search already shows me posts about UVB from 2009.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/to-uvb-or-not-to-uvb.229101/

So this is nothing new and the first research in this area were made in the 70's.
Instead of talking about it for 2 years you should try it. The things are not expensive; a 24w bulb with ballast and reflector you can build yourself for $30 and if you are lazy you can take a ready to use T5 fixture for reptile bulbs you get for 60-70 $.

UVA/B have become interesting again because spectrum tuning with LEDs is so much easier. We can communicate with the plants now by using specific wavelengths to trigger certain behaviors. T5/T12's are only used because there are no UVB LEDs to date that are durable enough and are not 10x more expensive in the same time.

A 24w/2ft reptile bulb hanging 12-14" above the canopy covers already a 2x 2' area and the more intense Agromax/Solacure bulbs cover even more surface area because they need 16-20" at least to not harm the plants.
I have two 24w bulbs running 3 times 25 minutes. Thats 1,25h or only 60w per day; for a 70day cycle that would be only 4,2kwh. Even with reptile bulbs and 8h the day it would end up with only 30kwh more. So its not a huge cost factor.
 
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Randomblame

Well-Known Member
I wasn't involved here. Just reading through but cmh has a bit of uvb.

Linked chart shows stats of many light sources including the sun tested at the university of utah.

https://www.cycloptics.com/sites/default/files/No Utah State Spectral Characterization Study.pdf

I am aware it is reprinted on a cmh selling company site. I cant find the original artical anymore.

Hmm!
0,03% of 315w means 0,945w UVB from a 4200°k bulb and 0,01% is only a third of that. I don't think its enough..
Screenshot_20190109-093440.png
 

MichiganMedGrower

Well-Known Member
Hmm!
0,03% of 315w means 0,945w UVB from a 4200°k bulb and 0,01% is only a third of that. I don't think its enough..
View attachment 4262019

I was just adding correct info. There are tests out there showing the 3-5% increase in test numbers using even the 3100k bulb.

And i dont remember what the solis tek 10k finishing bulb had but it is a low number and i have seen tests where they got that increase even using it just the last 2 weeks.


Personally we blind tested a phillips 315 cmh a hortilux 600 super hps and in blind testing patients could not reliably pick the cmh bud.

However the plants did show more compact growth and healthier leaves to the end of the cycle.

Also more coloring earlier on some strains and a few day sooner finish on some strains. A black widow cross finished 6 days sooner under cmh.

Thats all I got. I was just adding some pertinent info.
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
I was just adding correct info. There are tests out there showing the 3-5% increase in test numbers using even the 3100k bulb.

And i dont remember what the solis tek 10k finishing bulb had but it is a low number and i have seen tests where they got that increase even using it just the last 2 weeks.


Personally we blind tested a phillips 315 cmh a hortilux 600 super hps and in blind testing patients could not reliably pick the cmh bud.

However the plants did show more compact growth and healthier leaves to the end of the cycle.

Also more coloring earlier on some strains and a few day sooner finish on some strains. A black widow cross finished 6 days sooner under cmh.

Thats all I got. I was just adding some pertinent info.
Yeah, I've also seen better results from CMH with slightly more thc even if it were only 1 or 2%. The whole spectrum is better siuted for gowing plants. The higher amount of deep- and far-red for instance is responsible for the shortening effect.
 
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