Greetings, new to the forum, been growing hot peppers in containers on my porch for several years now. I'd really like to get into indoor growing. I'm looking at getting a Sunleaves Pioneer High Output T5. I'm thinking of the VIII 8 tube fixture to use in a grow tent. Not looking to go hydroponic, stick with containers indoors. Looking to have a setup that will be good enough for growing, flowering, and harvesting, not just germination. Will the Sunleaves Pioneer work or do I need to go HID?
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sun Anyone have luck growing with Sunleaves Pioneer High Output T5?
- Thread starter BurninBob
- Start date
BakersPeppers
Banned
Welcome to THP!
Yes I grow with that fixture and bulbs. It grows to full maturity if you so choose
No problem!!
It will grow about 8 plants per 8 bulb unit to harvest
Dale Jr
Yes I grow with that fixture and bulbs. It grows to full maturity if you so choose
No problem!! It will grow about 8 plants per 8 bulb unit to harvest
Dale Jr
'lo Bob. Welcome to THP.BurninBob said:
I'm using a similar, smaller, setup It's a 6 bulb T5. My reapers are about 14" tall now and a couple of my other plants are producing like crazy. Good harvests are relative. I started mine in October and they would have had no harvest being outdoors. The plan is to move them out and start a new batch indoors for the growing season.
The tent seems a bit wide to me considering that the bulb fixture will only be 25", but the length is just about perfect.
Based on what I've read here, with a good, reflective grow tent setup, this fixture should produce daylight intensity light levels over about 16 square feet of plant area. As for growing and flowering, that's more a function of light color than brightness - for vegetative growth, people use bluish lights with "color temperature" of around 6500K, then for flowering/fruiting, they switch to more reddish lamps with color temperature of around 3000 or 3500K. In my view, fluorescent is the better way to go, because you have more control over the light spectrum by choosing different lamps. But, pay attention to the lamps' photometric data - sometimes you have to dig, or ask for it, but you can usually get a copy of the output spectrum for a specific fluorescent tube. Two lamps with the same color temperature rating can have very different outputs - you want lamps that emphasize the blue/violet, and the orange/red parts of the spectrum, because these are the colors that chlorophyll is most sensitive to.
I'm currently running 6 tubes of 2800 lumens each - 1@ 3500K, 2@ 5000K, 1@ 6700K, and 2@ 30,000K (blacklight blue). The first 4 are on 18 hours, off 6, and the BLB are 24-7, mounted low, behind my flats, shining UP into the reflectors of the other 4. When the primary lights go off, the UV from the blacklights triggers a dim, bluish, secondary glow from the primaries (barely visible in the 3500K, most visible in the 6700K - it kinda looks like moonlight.) About every third day, I'll turn the blacklights off for an overnight of pure dark. My plants seem to be really happy with the setup - there was a dramatic increase in growth rate when I added the blacklights.
Anyway, that Pioneer seems like a great unit, good for 16, maybe 20 square feet of plants. Just make sure to get some vegetating lamps (6500K) and some flowering lamps (3000K), and swap them out when you want to start flowering.
I'm currently running 6 tubes of 2800 lumens each - 1@ 3500K, 2@ 5000K, 1@ 6700K, and 2@ 30,000K (blacklight blue). The first 4 are on 18 hours, off 6, and the BLB are 24-7, mounted low, behind my flats, shining UP into the reflectors of the other 4. When the primary lights go off, the UV from the blacklights triggers a dim, bluish, secondary glow from the primaries (barely visible in the 3500K, most visible in the 6700K - it kinda looks like moonlight.) About every third day, I'll turn the blacklights off for an overnight of pure dark. My plants seem to be really happy with the setup - there was a dramatic increase in growth rate when I added the blacklights.
Anyway, that Pioneer seems like a great unit, good for 16, maybe 20 square feet of plants. Just make sure to get some vegetating lamps (6500K) and some flowering lamps (3000K), and swap them out when you want to start flowering.
Steve66oh said:
What's the idea behind the blacklights? To simulate moonlight? Or did I miss the point completely?
The blacklights supplement the blue end of the spectrum, which is weak in the 5000K's, and almost non-existent in the 3500K tube. I found several charts of the spectral sensitivity of chlorophyll, which suggested that the plants might like some UV. I paid $20 for the one 6700K tube, an Aqueon "Daylight" aquarium/grow light - I didn't have budget for 3 more right away, but I had the blacklight - so I figured it probably wouldn't hurt to add it to the mix. The secondary activation of blue phosphors in the primary tubes overnight (the moonlight look) was a pleasant surprise.ChiliNoob said:
What's the idea behind the blacklights? To simulate moonlight? Or did I miss the point completely?
What matters is that this seems to work. 4 days after shedding their seed caps and standing up, these Cayenne sprouts already have true leaves as big as their cotyledons. 4 days! (yeah, they're wet.. I JUST watered them.)
Here are the primaries lit - and the blacklight tube is on, low front - here it is with the primaries off, activated by the blacklight.
Here's a typical plant photosynthesis response curve - this is what I'm trying to duplicate with lighting:
Everything I've read says that the blue wavelengths stimulate vegetative growth, and the red ones stimulate flowering - so I really want a lot of light energy below 450nm.
Both chlorophyll A and B have their largest responses in the blue end - "A" has a huge response to wavelengths below about 450nm (which we can barely see), which drops sharply at that point. My $20 tube has a decent fraction of its output in that range - here's the photometric curve for the Aqueon 6700K Daylight:
But, that's still better than these - the outputs of the 5000K and 3500K tubes - a much smaller fraction of the light is in the blue end:
http://genet.gelighting.com/LightingObjectRetrieval/Dispatcher?Catalog=Lighting&RequestType=Image&RecId=58&Variant=280jpg
http://genet.gelighting.com/LightingObjectRetrieval/Dispatcher?Catalog=Lighting&RequestType=Image&RecId=56&Variant=280jpg
Finally - the output from the blacklights:
http://genet.gelighting.com/LightingObjectRetrieval/Dispatcher?Catalog=Lighting&RequestType=Image&RecId=2992&Variant=280jpg
Sorry for all the photos - just trying to share what works for me, and why... and I don't mean to hijack the OP's question, I'm trying to say that the performance of a fluorescent setup is very dependent on lamp selection.
Thanks for such a detailed reply Steve. I'm glad to see that your getting good results by doing this.
Thanks, Bob.. for flowering, I'm going to try 4 of the 3500K T5-SO's, and two 5000K T8's. (It's still about "what I have on hand", saving the budget for seeds, flats, soil and drip irrigation..)
Since you're looking at a T5-HO fixture - http://www.sunleaves.com/detail.asp?sku=SPG108 - I see that when it is sold with tubes, they are VitaLUME 6500K grow tubes.. and they also sell 2900K bloom tubes for $15.50 each.
Since you're looking at a T5-HO fixture - http://www.sunleaves.com/detail.asp?sku=SPG108 - I see that when it is sold with tubes, they are VitaLUME 6500K grow tubes.. and they also sell 2900K bloom tubes for $15.50 each.
I can't speak for or against the quality of the VitaLUME tubes, because I don't have them myself, and I can't find a spectrum graph for them. I would be confident buying them though - they're made & sold as grow lights, and their color temperatures are right where they should be. Plus, other commenters here have said that they're very good lamps.
By sheer coincidence I stopped by my local Worm's Way on my way home from work and was delighted to find out that today's deal of the day is 45% off the Sunleaves Pioneer VIII, so I bought one! I got it out of the box and plugged in and wow is this thing bright! At first I wasn't too impressed, but as the bulbs warmed up it started getting insane bright! Cant wait to get this project going, will be getting the Dark Room DR120 48" x 48" x 80" next, unless someone can convince me that the Dark Street or Homebox are just as good.