Hello all at grasscity, hope all your grows are doing well. i'm sure youve all heard or read about adding uvb to your grow room to increase the overall quality and potency off our plants, this sounds absolutly bang on. but the problem is finding information about using uvb on cannabis. we've been doing alot of reading recently and can find bits and bobs about how other people use them in there grows, but you have to look everywhere to find information that you know will work. so what we plan to do is test it our selfs, on our own plants and post information that will be useful to other growers. also at the same time we need your advice and info about any experiance you have had with uvb too, so we should be able to post some facts and info, growers can refer too our grow currently is 2 week into flower, we are growing white rynho from greenhouseseeds and using advanced nutrients connoisseur with the full line of addatives, we are growing under 1 600w hps that is on a light rail. the uvb light we are going to use is a reptisun 10.0uvb 48"tube. it will be run on a arcada light system with the use of a refector. the uvb will be added this tuesday, we are going to attach it to the lightrail some how so it will be at the same level as the hps. we are thinking of putting the uvb on for a hour in the middle of the day, and work our way upto about 4-5 hour over the space of about 2 week. does anybody have any useful advice befor we switch on the uvb? we are excited and nervous at the same time any advice on your own experiance would be great, ill post some pics tomoz to show you the setup
So just to make sure I read that right, are you doing a with/without comparison of plants grown under UVB? If so I applaud your efforts - there is so little objective information on what if any increase these type of growing tweaks have on yield/quality. That said, I remember seeing a grow where they switched on the UVB at the same time as the main light or an hour after it had been on, can't quite remember. The thought process behind it was the sun is putting out way more UVB than these lights can produce, so why limit the output? Also just a little PSA to all investigating UVB-enhanced growing... Use care with these lights! You don't want to be working the garden with ANY UV light on.
sorry mate there will not be a comparison i dont think, but now you mention it, it might be essential that we do. the reason for limiting the uvb is to make sure we dont damage the plants when we switch on the uvb, then we will be raising the amount of time the uvb is on, we think this is the best way to get as much uvb as posible to the plants with out damaging them, ive read about people using them all day and ive read about people using them for a few hour in the middle of the day, we cant find no certain ways on using the uvb bulb, no one seems to know for sure, how, when or how long to use them thats the reason for this thread. how we got to the idea of starting in the middle of the day i by trying to match how the sun puts out uvb, and weve read that the sun maxss out for about 4-5 hour in the middle of the day then starts to die back down. weve always tried to keep things as real as possible, hope this helps
just an fyi... theres many many many many times more uvb from the sun than you're gonna get out of a lightbulb - crank the uvb on those bitchs! I was looking at times as well and came to the same conclusion you did - around the middle of the day would work best. Take Hashamans advice about the uvb warning!!! Keep the uvb light on a seperate timer that you can control outside of the grow room (i.e. so you can turn it off before going in).
I added the 48 inch Iguana light with 7% uvb at 12 inches. It is a mid wave uvb light at 270-320nm I also switched to Sunmaster Cool Dleuxe MH bulbs that have some uvb. I just harvested and am doing a long cure. I ran the uvb light 12/12 on the timer with the other lights. I kept the bulbs at 6-8 inches. I did a comparison test on the same plant. I chopped some budz and then added the uvb. The uvb budz cured faster. .
Look for videos on youtube about uvb. I was watching one by this old hippie dude and he did a comparison grow and noticed (with a microscope) that uvb produced an insane amount of more resin/crystals than without. Earl I love your plants bro! You always got some hell of good weeds growing! Keep it up man. Hehehe, the first picture just yells FIRE HAZARD lol jp. w00t. My 1337 post.
I have my Ceramic Metal Halide in play right now at 2 days in with the light and the growth and quality of the plants I have has improved very noticably over the regular MH they had for about 2 weeks or so. Looking forward to reaping the benefits of a more full spectrum light. More people need to start looking into using CMH bulbs. They run cooler and grow better.
hello to all, thanks for all your advice yo Earl, your babys look beautiful, have you noticed any diffrence in your smoke, meaning any improvment in potency or taste. glad to see youve completed yor test on uvb do you think you will be using it again?like you said about the uv light too, it is very dangerours and will always be turned off befor we go into the room, thinkin about putting a light switch on the outside of the door, safest way i think. gonig on to what Maccgyver said now about the new lights that are out, the cmh from phillips http://advancedtechlighting.com/cdmed18.htm heres a link. cant wait to change to these babys, going to get one at the end of crop, be the best upgrade in a long time from all the reports ive been reading, but thats for anothere thread i think, its hard to change all the old timers to new tech so theres going to be a long debate about that. anyway back onto the uvb, our reflector has come today so i might get it all setup today ready for tomoz, ill post some pics later show you our setup and how things are going to look, maybe then you might be able to give me more advice, thanks for all your intrest youve been more than helpful so far, ill post detailed specs of uor grow room too. like temps, humitity, how far the bulb will be and so on
Added soom photos of last crop tell us wat u think cheers. be posting some photos of the new crop soon
I did notice that my plants have a more piney smell after I added the uvb light. The buds seem to cure faster, but they probly are just better. I am still waiting on it to cure. These lights are not good for your eyes. They have the same effect as staring at a welder. Those bright blue MH lights have the same effect on your eyes. Not good to have much exposure to either of them. You will have some ill effect in less than 15 minutes. .
Thanks earl your imput is greatly appreciated, let us know the end result of yor crop when its cured. anyway heres a few pics of the plants that will be given the uvb tomoz. i dint have time to do it today, i got busy. theres a pic of the light system too. does anybody have any experiance with this light system, seems to be gud enuff to do the job let me know what you think, the plants are white rhino 2 week into flower been on connoisseur for a week now and let me tell you, this shit is the bomb, we currently smoking our cured whire widow from the last crop that was grown with connoisseur from advanced nutrients and its the best weed we have ever had with out a dowt, we highly reccommend this stuff BELIVE US NOW IT IS NOT OVER ADVERTISED just had to say that peace
Set the light up yesterday, we only run it for a hour just to make sure everything works ok. gunna put the uvb on for four hour and examine them everyday, if theres no bad signs from the light we'll keep putting it up a couple of hour at a time until ( or if ) we reach the full 12 hour, take a look at the pics the light is about 8-10" away do you think this will be ok. we will be turning the plants 180 and swapping the back ones with the front ones every feed, all plants should get uvb beaming down all over them in time.
I moved my light fixture around my canopy. I kept it at about 6-8 inches just to get more coverage. I believe the UVb penetrates farther than visible light. I know my eyes could feel it 10 feet away. I had it very close(2") on my WhiteWidow, and there was no problems. Lizard Lamps are only as intense as a regular floro, as for as your plant is concerned.. The only difference is the effect it has on humans. .
Look at the size of those false seed pods. They're huge, and swollen. Damn looks like you grew some damn fine ganja.
Not trying to be raceist or nothingbut i think im gonna give the uvb a go, im just wondering what the ill effects are i mean black people dont get sun burn becuase of our skin pigment so will i be immune to the harmful rays, im not gonna chance it or nothing i was just wondering lol!!!! thanks for the awesome thread guys, what kind of light will work the best for my grow room, its gonna be lighted with a 250 watt hps, and its 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide, and about 24 in wide i do believe. thanks ahead of time!!
heres a clip of a site= UV radiation is made up of invisible rays from the sun. The three bands of UV light are: UVA, UVB and UVC. UVB rays are the most worrisome. They burn the skin and cause damage to the eyes. UVA rays are absorbed primarily within the eye's lens, and research suggests that they are not as harmful as UVB. UVC rays are not a problem because they are absorbed by the upper atmosphere and do not reach the earth's surface. my advice would be to get uv protection sun glasses, if you are to go into the room with the U.V on but peronally i would highly reccomend turning the light off while entering the room that way you dont have toworry about a thing apart from how ya babys are doing. i dont think because your black you will be protected from the harmful rays, 1 ov my mates whos black goes darker when he goes sunbathing so im thinking UV still has an affect on everyones skin, i wish you all bountyful harvest,
i wud reccomend any bulb in the range of 270nm to 320nm i personally use reptisun10 http://www.cheappetproducts.net/15_WATT_REPTISUN_HIGH_OUTPUT_10_0_UVB_BULB_18_-UKP69336.html they definitely work and gave our stash an extremly pungent smell and allround better smoke
Please Please please monitor the trichomes constantly. I added a few at the tail end of flowering and my trichs when from clear to dark dark amber within 3 days. I had the lights on them for a week or so but the last 3 days, it accelerated the process exponentially causing my to harvest asap. It left me with barely any cloudy trichs, some clear and most mainly dark amber
Thanks man that sounds good i most definetly will give that light a try, i have only got seedlings right now so it will be a GREAT while until i have my first hand at trying them out, but thank u very much for the feed bac, and uv sunglasses sound good i may try them, i just wanna see how it makes my plants look with the uvb lights on them, im really excited to try this method!!! thanks for the link the post and the whole experiment u did, that really hepls out people like me, i may conduct my own experiment and post it when im done that way we can have what happens from all different angles, and peceptions thanks again man, wish me luck!!!!