UV lighting thread

Scientific said:
For God's sake first and foremost protect your eyes! FULL EYE COVERAGE--GOGGLES--SO NO UV LIGHT GETS IN FROM THE SIDE EITHER.
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Yes indeed, and I guess I should have mentioned that.

I keep the UV lights well below eye-level and I don't work around them at all when they're on. I adjust the height and angle while they're off, then turn them on from outside the tent. The switches are on the sides of the hoods so my hands don't go under the light at all. Same thing when I "visit" my plants: UV lights off before I get in the tent.

Thanks for bringing up an extremely important safety measure!

^^^And I hope that didn't come off as dismissive, Scientific. I do take this *very* seriously, and your personal experience isn't lost on me. This 50-something-year-old (who remembers slathering on baby oil for "protection" before hitting the beach in the 1960s) definitely cares about her skin and eye health!
 
Scientific said:
For God's sake first and foremost protect your eyes! FULL EYE COVERAGE--GOGGLES--SO NO UV LIGHT GETS IN FROM THE SIDE EITHER. No, sunglasses are NOT enough!

This is incredibly important. You really don't want skin cancer on your face and cataracts any earlier than you need to. Even short wavelength blue light can damage your eyes. If you're gonna use UV, get serious and get professional. This is serious, dangerous stuff.

I used to work in a bioengineering facility where we used UV for DNA work. Lots of people would work for half an hour at a time wearing just googles instead of a full face shield and gloves as they were supposed to. Eventually they'd get Donald Trump tanning bed white circles around their eyes where the googles had been and suntan/sunburn on their hands.

I'm old enough now (60s) so that I'm seeing the long-term effects of just too much sunlight in my friends and myself. I have already have a slightly cloudy lens in my left eye and have had to have actinic keratoses burned off my face. A friend had to have full on facial surgery for skin cancer. Another friend has even had surgery on his arms and elsewhere from his hippy nudist days in Florida. (And of course UV can cause malignant melanoma, which is one of the worst cancers there is.)

The bottom line is, protect yourself from UV, ESPECIALLY from the industrial-grade UV lamp variety.

Better yet, just stick to visible light illumination and find some other aspect of your grow to optimize/hot-rod.

Take care of your skin (and especially your eyes). Your 60- and 70-year-old self will thank you. :)
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Absolutely and 100% agree!!!! very very important! UV is extremely harmful to all living cells.. GREAT ADVICE and WARNING!!!

I'm sharing your post because this is extremely important!!! kudos for sharing the knowledge!
 
My industrial grade lights with 1 hr of on time nearly destroyed my plants. So I have to back it down a notch. Made for some strange growth from the new growth areas. There were two plants in veg they took it hard. The budding plant did okay but many weeks later and the leafs are clearly hurting. It's not strait forward that's for sure.
 
I used to work in a P3 biocontainment facility that had short wavelength UV tubes mounted in the ceiling to help disinfect. No one was allowed in the room when they were on because they were so dangerous to the eyes and skin. It doesn't surprise me at all that they crisped your plants! I just really hope that the guy who doesn't get the memo and exposes himself or his eyes to UV tubes doesn't get anything worse than a sunburn and "snow blindness." Be careful with UV sources!
 
Also just to note... even though this is a UV thread....

Deep blue, and blue LEDs are also very concerning to medical professionals as they also are very harmful to the eyes. I don't remember the details but it had something to do with the amount of energy the blue photons carried (the purple/blue region carries far more energy than the orange/red/IR region) so the eyes were having issues releasing the energy from LED blue light.

Here is a great paper on this topic:

Age-related maculopathy and the impact of blue light hazard Peep V. Algvere, 1 John Marshall 2 and Stefan Seregard 1
1 Karolinska Institute, St Erik’s Eye Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden2
Rayne Institute, St Thomas’ Hospital, London, UK

Studies of age-related alterations of the retina and photoreceptors, the accumulation of lipofuscin in retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells, and the formation of drusen have greatly contributed to our knowledge. A new concept of an inflammatory response to drusen has emerged, suggesting immunogenic and systemic reactions in Bruch’s membrane and the subretinal space. Oxidative stre
ss and free radical damage also impact on the photoreceptors and RPE cells in the ageing eye. Based on the photoelectric effect, a
fundamental concept in quantum physics, the consequences of high-energy irradiation have been analysed in animal models and cell culture. Short-wavelength radiation(rhodopsin spectrum), and the blue light hazard (excitation peak 440 nm), have been shown to have a major impact on photoreceptor and RPE function, inducing photo-chemical damage and apoptotic cell death.
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So always use eye protection around any UV sources, and also blue light.

a little interesting fact to tie this into plants as well. If you have ever found yourself watching tv or on a computer or tablet late at night and can't fall asleep, do you know what many times the cause is? blue light.... (could be other reasons like too much caffeine or insomnia as well.)

Blue like in humans, and plants is the region of the spectrum/color that tells the body, and plants when night and day are. It controls our Circadian Rhythm as well as in plants. Since a lot of LED tvs, computer screens and newer devices have very high levels of blue light in the spectrum. (white led's are technically blue LEDs with phosphors and different electron holes which alter the spectrum to emit other wavelengths of light). If you actually look at a white LED spectrum chart you will see the huge blue peak... and this, is the reason you can't fall asleep when on your computer/laptop/tv etc.... doing this over and over can alter our circadian rhythm which is our bodies (and plants) clock in which our bodies anticipate sunrise, and feel sleepy as it gets dark. This is why a lot of newer devices are coming with either a low blue setting or mode, or there are even blue blocking filters and glasses out there for the same reason.

Plants do this as well, if you ever watch your plants over the course of their daylight cycle the leaves in the morning will be reaching up high with strong posture but as the day goes onthe leaves start to drop slightly and sag as it gets close to lights off/night. Why do they do this and how do they know when night is? well that is the circadian rhythm and the plants anticipate night time coming. Same with the morning, if you ever look at the plants 10 minutes before the lights come on, the leaves are already propped up high with good "praying" posture and look ready for the day. Again they start to anticipate the sun coming up/lights on and get ready for it, driven by blue light reactions and circadian rhythm. The pigments responsible for this are called chryptochromes.

The Cryptochrome Blue Light Receptors
Xuhong Yu, Hongtao Liu, John Klejnot, and Chentao Lina,

Cryptochromes are photolyase-like blue light receptors originally discovered in Arabidopsis but later found in other plants, microbes, and animals. Arabidopsis has two cryptochromes, CRY1 and CRY2, which mediate primarily blue light inhibition of hypocotyl elongation and photoperiodic control of floral initiation, respectively. In addition, cryptochromes also regulate over a dozen other light responses, including circadian rhythms, tropic growth, stomata opening, guard cell development, root development, bacterial and viral pathogen responses, abiotic stress responses, cell cycles, programmed cell death, apical dominance, fruit and ovule development, seed dormancy, and magnetoreception. Cryptochromes have two domains, the N-terminal PHR (Photolyase-Homologous Region) domain that bind the chromophore FAD (flavin adenine dinucleotide), and the CCE (CRY C-terminal Extension) domain that appears intrinsically unstructured but critical to the function and regulation of cryptochromes. Most cryptochromes accumulate in the nucleus, and they undergo blue light-dependent phosphorylation or ubiquitination. It is hypothesized that photons excite electrons of the flavin molecule, resulting in redox reaction or circular electron shuttle and conformational changes of the photoreceptors. The photoexcited cryptochrome are phosphorylated to adopt an open conformation, which interacts with signaling partner proteins to alter gene expression at both transcriptional and posttranslational levels and consequently the metabolic and developmental programs of plants.
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Anyhow, I know this is a UV thread, but just wanted to also put this little bit of a warning out for even blue light being harmful to the eyes and to wear protection in the grow room and around any intense lighting.
 
Scientific said:
Full UV-certified goggles around UV, and ideally a face shield and full coverage for all skin.

BTW, I notice that my dentist has an amber shield protecting his eyes from the blue light they use to cure resin fillings. (It's a pretty intense blue light, though.)
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Oh yea. Know that light too well
 
Advocate420 said:
Hmmm, So tell me about your rooms lighting.
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My current grow room has a nuclear-fusion-powered light source that comes on at dawn and gets progressively more intense until 1 PM PDT, then gradually lessens until 8:40 PM PDT. When I'm exposed to the light source, I wear a hat, protective glasses, and a UV-blocking lotion. ;) Even with all that, I recently had to have several actinic keratoses removed from my face by a dermatologist, and my optometrist says that one my eyes has a lens that's getting a little cloudy--tiny injuries accumulate.

I've mentioned the P3 biohazard facility I used to work at where you weren't even allowed in the room when the UV tubes in the ceiling were turned on. But what I remember more than anything was the people who used UV lamps for DNA work who would get ski-goggle sunburns on their faces because they couldn't be bothered to wear a face shield. Back then we teased people about tanning on the job. Nowadays I think they take UV exposure a lot more seriously.
 
Scientific said:
My current grow room has a nuclear fusion-powered light source that comes on at dawn and gets progressively more intense until 1 PM PDT, then gradually lessens until 8:40 PM PDT. When I'm exposed to it, I wear a hat, protective glasses, and protective lotion. ;) Even with all that, I recently had to have several actinic keratoses removed from my face by a dermatologist.

I've mentioned the P3 biohazard facility I used to work at where you weren't even aloud in the room when the UV tubes in the ceiling were turned on. But what I remember more than anything was the people who used UV lamps for DNA work who would get ski-goggle sunburns on their faces because they couldn't be bothered to wear a face shield. Back then we tease people about suntanning at work. Nowadays I think they take UV exposure a lot more seriously.
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Lol yes I have an identical light source I believe.
 
I use the small spiral uv lights they sell at pet stores for reptiles. I believe they are 27 watt. I would have to check for specifics on what they emit.
I have used them for my past 3 or 4 grows. Theyre set on a timer to turn on for about 2 hours a "day" at first then i gradually increase it to 3-4 hours depending how the plants react. They hang about 4 to 6 inches away from the tops and i move them to a different area every day.
In my experience they coax out a good bit more resin then when i run without them.
 
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