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How much light?

spicy_echo

spicy_echo

I've seen periodically people mention how long you keep indoor lights on their plants. What's a good rule of thumb? I have 2 40w T12 6500k bulbs on my babies. 20 hours? All the time?
 
I like to do an 18 on 6 off cycle. I'm sure a 20/4 would work well too. Just try it out, if your plants look happy with your light cycle, then I'm sure they are!
 
Chewi said:
Jealous of you guys who have proper light set ups! You almost done shoveling snow up there?
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Chewie I spent $20 at Lowe's yesterday and got this light setup!

Snow is almost all gone but Amarillo just north of us got 19"!!! They shut the city down for 2 days up there. I need to check on P Dreadie he may still be snowed under haha
 
We sure did get it up here !! Was a hoot !! Lot's of small cars stuck everywhere ! It was hard to drive between them

On lighting I use 18hrs on ... others more. I don't feel adding more hrs of light will help much myself.

Peace,
P. Dreadie
 
You can run the lights 24/7 if you're so inclined but from personal experience there seems to be diminishing returns over about 16 hrs of light. Won't see much of a difference between 18/6 & 24/0 except on your power bill.
 
Two T-12 bulbs is not a lot of light. Get those lights as close as you can. I would suggest stronger lights, but since you are in TX, you aren't going to be inside for much longer.

16-18 hours seems like what most people are doing, myself included.
 
Jeff H said:
Two T-12 bulbs is not a lot of light. Get those lights as close as you can. I would suggest stronger lights, but since you are in TX, you aren't going to be inside for much longer.

16-18 hours seems like what most people are doing, myself included.
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It's just 1 72 pod flat. Think I need more than that? Yeah, I don't think I will be inside but maybe another month.
 
18/6 and T5's about 3" from top of tallest.
Poor babies gotta rest sometime.

Longest day of the year here doesn't get 18/6, don't want to shock them too much when they go outside,
 
Sorry if it's a newb question but I am looking for more supplemental light for my seedlings before I transfer them outside. I'll probably pot up once before trying to harden them off in april/may. I've got about 60-70 seedlings on each of my two seed trays. I am wondering what the rule of thumb is for how much wattage/lumens per plants or square foot? Right now I only running two t12s a few inches away and it's not enough. I'd like to try the power strips with bulb splitters and am wondering how many CFLs I'll need.

Thanks.
 
The sun can put out ten thousand lumens per square foot.That's probably unrealistic with cfls though haha. I think a good rule of thumb is 3000-5000 lumens per square foot. That has always worked for me.
 
TXCG said:
You can run the lights 24/7 if you're so inclined but from personal experience there seems to be diminishing returns over about 16 hrs of light. Won't see much of a difference between 18/6 & 24/0 except on your power bill.
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I couldent say it any better, right on!
From personal experience I noticed that the peppers under 18/6 or 20/4 will produce thicker and larger peppers then plants that have no dark period at all.
Personally I think (I'm not an expert on this, but I'm sure many will agree) that the plant loads up with energy during light time to be able to produce and grow in the dark period.
I notice this when checking on my peppers at night before switching off the lights and comparing to the next morning (growth of pods is much larger after a dark period).
So like TXCG said, u might get good crops from 24/0 but the only difference would be the electrical bill... and maybe smaller peppers.
Like I said I'm absoluteley not an expert and this issue is still open for discussion or testing cause offcourse we'd ALL like a mega harvest :P
 
Greetz,
 
Olli
 
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