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lighting Growing Lights

thepodpiper said:
I am not sure about the style of lights you are using but if all you are doing is growing seedlings to eventually stick them outside in the garden, save your money and buy the cheapest bulbs you can find they are all you need. As far as how close to the lights mine are right next to the lights and even touching most of the time.
plantprogressionApril039.jpg


I was only using mine 12/12 but this year I started using mine for 16/8 just to see if there would be a benefit to more light (for growing seedlings only) there has not been any difference in the plants that I have under 12/12 lighting vs 16/8 to this point.

The only thing that I use is some old pull down window shades in the back of my setup, again if all you are doing is growing seedlings to set out in the garden there is no need for reflectors at this stage of the seedlings. There is no canopy to block the light. But I may try more of the reflector thing this year when i get more of my seedlings up and running. I am going to try the reflective blankets that you get in the camping dept. at K-Mart or Meijers. this is my setup and i had over 400 plants last year and they all did super without any high tech fancy stuff and the lights last year were only on 12 hrs. a day. Do not forget the fan when the seedlings get about 4 or 5 inches tall. I run mine for 10 min. twice a day on a timer. (approx.)

lightstand002.jpg
My compliments Podpiper,
very excellent setup.

pablo
pablossecondseason2kv5.jpg

pablossecondseason1tu3.jpg
 
Thanks pablo. I will take your advice concerning reflecting the light. I have the tiny seedlins in south facing window for direct indoor sunlight. And currently using a one bulb plant light. I have a shoplight set up but going to wait until plants are a little bigger and the wife complains about them in the living room. Plus I'm going to get tomatoes started at the end of this week.
 
Omri said:
Should help as well:
hortgraph2wq9.gif


Looking at the light chart above...why would one use a bulb that is only 4,000k and the other bulb being 6,500k. From the chart it doesn't look like the 4,000k doesn't do much in promoting growth. I know some on here have said that they use one of each in thier light set ups. Then again, I'm probably clueless about all this.
 
Blue is mainly for vegetative growth like leaves and nodes. red is more for flowering.
Of course it's not that simple. the more "precise" the bulb is in color, the more it cost (usually).
Sure a 5500K MH would be a dream, but it cost more than standard MH.
 
ddrsheden said:
Looking at the light chart above...why would one use a bulb that is only 4,000k and the other bulb being 6,500k. From the chart it doesn't look like the 4,000k doesn't do much in promoting growth. I know some on here have said that they use one of each in thier light set ups. Then again, I'm probably clueless about all this.

Be careful when interpreting this graph, it can be misleading.
The Kelvin value given by light cie is a measure of the total light emitted.

Notice all the different Wavelength emitted by a fluorescent tube. I think this is a 4000K fluorescent tube.
Spectrometer pic of fluorescent tube
spectrum_small.jpg


photosynthetic activity
photoSynActivity.jpg
 
Envirolites?

Anyone tried Envirolites or similar (have a look on eBay)?

They seem to have a rather flat / broad spectrum range...

I'm about to germinate a batch (indoors, heated seed raiser) and am looking at my lighting options. I've got plenty of regular fluoro battens about (and tubes are cheap), and even a HID somewhere in the workshop (I'll need to check exactly what it is).

Cheers, Antony.
 
I'm using four 13-watt bulbs in a 20x30 inch box with white walls. They are delivering 1600 Lux at the top of the seed trays, about 500 lumens more than two 40-watt fluorescent tube lamps are. I hope to replace them with 20 watt lamps soon.

A word of caution - you cannot put these lights real close to seedlings as they do put out more heat than tubes, though far less than incandescent bulbs.

Mike
 
130watt spectrum fluro 2700k Spectrum brand is what I use. they have higher K lights also. Best ting is no heat.
I dunno much about lights but these works for me.

Mick
 
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