I’ve been wanting to add uv to my grow setup. I talked with Graysin about it a little in another thread and got a good option for LED uv. I went down the rabbit hole a little and saw that MIGRO now has a florescent uv light. Every manufacturer’s lights are always the best according to them.
From what I’ve read LED produces only UVA. Florescent is around 75% uvb and 25% uva. I’ve read various articles that say use only uva, uvb is bad, uvb is the best, use both, etc. I trust the opinion of the growers here more than any article. There’s not a lot of difference in the cost of the two so performance is what matters. Which type of uv light produces the best results, LED or florescent?
Yup hlg light bar is the bomb and you can attach( a lil awkwardly ) to the middle of a 260 xl and as long as you dont look up its not to dangerous to work without protection( it also gave me a light tan lol) and this is the frostiest harvest ive gotten ( this isnt the best light to show it( to orange ) )
You want to avoid exposure to any uv( turn off or long sleeves and hat when working under these) also theres been some articles that i cant look for that say any plastic or glass covering the bulb pretty much negates the uv benefit. Something to look at before spending the cash
I use the UVA bars HLG sells. They are a buy, resale light out of china. UVB is better than UVA. But UVB is hard to do with LED and Florescent UVB lights degrade very fast. I use to run UVB florescent lights years ago. I would run them no more than 2 to 4 hours a day in the middle of the light cycle to replicate midday. Many claim you can run UVA with your normal daily light cycle. From the few grows I’ve used my UVA-30 and UVA-30XL on 4 to 6 hours seems to be a good time frame for what I’ve seen. And the genetics seem to play a bigger roll concerning UV light. Some plants respond with more trichomes which is the goal. Some plants respond with a wax looking coating on the leaves and that can shut down and screw up VPD. Another thing one needs to know when using UV or any kind. It does raise your PAR/PPFD and most meters will not see or measure UVA or B. My Apogee MQ610 ePAR does register UVA. The 30 watt bar light does increase my PPFD by at least 20 PPFD while on. Even with it being UVA thats a harsh 20 PPFD so beware of that. Both fixtures are 30 watt.
Dual 260 Rspec w/UVA-30. A 650R is coming in today to upgrade this light. The UVA will be transferring to the new 650R.
I have the 350R in a 2x4 so I can’t mount the bar in parallel with the light. Does it work well the way you have it in the first picture? They say the uv30 and xl cover 4x4 so that how I was thinking I’d have to mount it. Either that or hang the XL by itself on one side. I rotate my plants every day so they’d get even exposure even though it’d be less.
The 650R is definitely a bmf. Are you gonna put it in a 2x4 or did you get another tent?
350R’s are in a 2 x 4. The dual 260 Rspecs the 650R are upgrading are in a 3 x 3. As you know I’m a high power low dimmer setting sort of nut. I was going to run the UVA30-XL next to a single 350R in the 2 x 4 and got all setup for it. But after playing with the 350R, if one was good two would be better and gave me the much better UVA mounting location. I would like to get the far red 730nm version of the lights I have and mount them up. The 650R wont be a issue. But options are limited with the 350R setup. I’m already at 20-3/8" wide across both fixtures I would have to spread that wider to at least 23-1/2" to make the UVA and Far Red fit. Which would require I get a wider piece of 1/8" thick aluminum plate.
Original 350R Setup. With 100V2@4000k seedling/early veg light in place. A temporary setup with marine/uv rated zip ties and straps while I waited on mounting chains and I-bolts to come in.
This not exactly accurate, but probably safe to say exceptions aren’t common. I can point you to uvb leds but you probably won’t want to pay for them.
If you dig and can understand scientific writing the studies for a lot this are available. And you can find them to support any position you want to take. I will say that a lot of people confuse the term 5% increase in thc content to mean the test samples went from 20% thc to 25% thc, when the 5% increase was more like going from 20% thc to 21% thc.
I supplement standard and red leds with violet and it appears to add a little more frost. But i don’t care enough to actually see if cannabinoids changed. It was good weed before i used them and still good weed using them. You can also find support of this from additional blue wavelengths.
The plain and simple is… until you have your grow environment down to a “dialed in” controllable/repeatable point; the small factor increases are not goin to affect the small tent grower in any measurable amount. Using UVA is known to be a positive stressor throughout, measurable amounts negligible, I use one all the way but I also like heavy blue in veg. (personal preference). UVB, please no pro use’s it…that I am aware of, sunburn and high heat/light stress…not much benefit for us tenty’s
That’s a problem with a lot of studies today. The conclusion is forgone depending on who is funding the study. That’s why I thought I’d ask on this forum and see what actual growers had to say about the issue. Good point about what a 5% increase entails. Gotta pay attention to the numbers and footnotes. I’m sure if there was anything that would take thc from 20-25% we’d all be using it.
