HALP! CMH lights- what is going on?

[Thetinman]

That make sense to me, no all in one, always heard that. Now they tout its ALL really for flowering, even the 4200k. Bs......
3100k probably does better with LESS hours per day. Some have found to goto 7 (!) Hours dark for vegging?
That's why they succeeded, longer dark periods.
The 4200k is made for plant to handle a longer day, most likely.
Been on 24/7, few days ago went to 22 on 2 off. Now at 20 on and 4 off. Yellowing is still there, but is getting lot better, each added hours to each day. But STILL YELLOW!
New bulbs, good reflection and that's it. Send it all back if this is not it....

T

 

[Madmax]

I was going to say awhile ago you could reduce the light hrs they recieve.to 18/6 that could help them out abit..im running the 3100k atm..they are bout 190 bucks here...expensiveas ..lol...i have the temp set at 25.7 with 1 deg cel delay to when exhaust fan cuts on at 26.7 sometimes it goes a little over..humidity set at 65% .smaller rooms work well to dial in..easier to heat up.

 

[Thetinman]

Thanks to Aqua Man and Madmax...

Good morning,
Plants stretched abit last night, but no yellowing, so far so good...
Keeping 20 on 4 off till tomorrow. Where I will have new bulbs, see if that will help. Lights are still pretty high up.
Starting to clean up, see wat happens......

 

[Thetinman]

To update folks keeping an Eye on this thread....
Decisions were made and took step to use, temporarily, dull side of aluminum foil. No wilting occurred. That's a first.

Aqua Man suggested cheap foam boards with silver backing. Madmax uses another "dull" reflection, he uses CMH bulbs.

There is a "red" and "blue" bulbs for 315cmh. A 3100k is used for Flowering, as it turns out. The 4200k is used for Vegging. Looks like the people in charge of sales for these bulbs, screwed the pooch in thinking that "one for all, all for one" approach would probably boost sales because of the costs involved. Probably not even smart enough to put BOTH in A PACKET TO SELL! Morons! They are hiding it, and we would not spend more because it was too high in the first place. This is where I left off......5 YEARS AGO! That's why they were too high then. Thought they came down in price, ha!
This is no problem here, I expected that. I got caught up in yellow and forgot....meh!
Everything comes with a 3100k bulb! For flowering????? Nice move chuckleheads.....
Might have a piece of the puzzle there, who knows....

 

[Thetinman]

Here are today's pics. Lowered co2 to 1600ppm, 6300lux, 77-80°, 70rh...
Looks like longer dark time was needed...

 

[Thetinman]

At 2 hours off was just a teaser. Then 4 hours off was still not enough.
This is starting to make a bit of sense...

Worst of the yellowing was at wake up. Droopy, listless, etc etc. The energy built up during light times may have just had not enough time to burn off at night.
I know the lower you go with any frequencies, the more raw and powerful you get. Blunt power. Until u get into super high frequencies, which are damaging. But a simple uptick from 3100 to 4200 should (?) Provide less power to dissipate that of plant in less than 4 hours.
We will see. Will get new bulbs tomorrow. 4pm is lights out presently. Will change out tomorrow night at 8pm Pacific...
Cheers.

TinMan

 

[Tasty Buds]

My plants under two cmh 315. End of flower six plants. 4x4 footprint. All stainless and reflective.

Now that's a nice leach. The more colorful, or even ugly a plant looks at harvest, the cleaner the burn.
Anyway, I'm just taking a back seat here, and absorbing as much info as I can on CMH.
I'm still curious, why the move away from MH, and HPS?

 

[Thetinman]

It's the green baby..... the green has me transfixed on knowing this is the right way to go.
It's the nuances that haven't been discussed.
That's the pieces to the mystery puzzle itself...

 

[Thetinman]

Ok, have to thread going until I figure this out. I am very close now. Girls woke up under rested and grumpy. Yellow has returned, but way better than previous.
This is the time of day where TinMan freaks out...
But alas there IS hope....
Babies took a hit, never mentioned I added a seed mat because I knew they were cold previous morning. But I also snuffed out all lights withing room, so it was dark as a very deep cave.
But the big girls show there was more energy dissipation from plants than previously seen at wake up. Been misting at this time, holding off they always looked worse before.
The 4200's should provide less energy, getting tomorrow.....

 

[Thetinman]

Dont know why last post did not take last night..

But here we are this morning...

 

[Thetinman]

Ok,
So, they are growing at a snail's pace. The folks out there have mentioned this so many times....
So there is merit to that, its obvious.
As you can see, there is the constant yellow on big girls.
BUT! They drank up half the water weight of what they had last night, wow!
The babies are drinking too, the midsize girls haven't really budged for a week.....still!
But they are all pretty even. The real picky ones are the big girls, man!

But still have not moved lights now for a couple of days. They SHOULD be kicking it in gear.... but alas they puttered out to snail crawl.

By gum, these new bulbs better work.

 

[Thetinman]

Ya, I believe there is way too much RED in the light wave. Thinking about trying a baby blue paint on a piece of foam board. Might absorb the reds and throw more blue....
Something cheap to test out.....
I know if I tweak the lights, or lower the rh, or lower the temps, that is an infinity loop of winding back where you started. Nightmare.
Crossing fingers here.....

 

[Thetinman]

KEWL!!!
Got the 4200's. Popped them in just before dark. Unbelievable! The seedlings just popped out that green I have been talking about

 

[Thetinman]

Now this is the comparisons between the 2 bulbs. Exactly the same peaks, but with all that color too.
Looks like this is the key to Vegetation with 315CMH 4200K bilbs!

 

[Thetinman]

Ok, they woke up with new 4200's in place.
Tried to drop a smidgen, nothing doing.

Had to pull back up to 6200lux. They are greener, but it looks like 8 will have to goto 6 h

 

[Thetinman]

Also! First week nutes in big and middle girls. Organics, so I am crossing my fingers...

 

[Thetinman]

Well it looks like I am out of the woods here.
Below you can see the differences. Yellowing is just about out, dropped to 65rh or 35% humidity had to raise lights to well over 4' away from plants.
@77-81°,, 1500ppm co2, under 6000lux.

 

[Thetinman]

So let's recap,
315CMH does seem to work. With dull metallic reflection (flat and even), must use the 4200k (actually 4k-4.2kelvin) bulbs for vegging. 3100k for flowering. Keeping between 65-75rh. Co2 at around 1500ppm.
There you may find a very successful grow....

TinMan

 

[Thetinman]

O and also, 6 hours dark right off the bat.

 

[Thetinman]

Additionally, I heard that I need to raise PH to 6.5. I did so last nights first feeding of nutes for big and medium size girls. They are greener because of that too, I am sure.