Grow Light

[Aiko]

Back in the days when I grew orchids, HID and HPS lamps were in fashion for indoor growing and there were some anecdotal stories of the police keeping an eye on whoever bought them in the US.

Up here they keep an eye out for roof tops without snow lying on it, when snow has falling. Other roofs usually still have a big layer of snow on it, if the attic is not housing plants and lights, which melts the snow on the other side of the roof tiles.

[FaeLLe]

Hi IanW,

I have had really good luck with LED grow lights for the past two years. I used to run a 300W Marshydro grow light (it uses only 150W of power) and my succulents grew and flowered every spring, the ones in the proximity of the coverage area retained their compact form.

Have now moved to Digital ballast powered HID's and the plants seem to think that summer is here early. The lights push out a fair bit of heat too and from 5-6 foot away the temperature in my indoors greenhouse gets pushed up by 10 degree celcius when they are on and drop by that much at night.

It has been really rewarding for me growing the under grow lights; except for when I get a bug infestation (there are no natural predators so I need to keep an eye out)!

[FaeLLe]

You should also see the grow bulbs on Aliexpress.com as it comes straight from the factory in China (albeit a longer lead time to delivery) but you will probably get them for half the price or less than buying it locally.

P.S. if anyone wants a contact for the factory distributor for Marshydro lights in the UK then please let me know. Otherwise you can get it for a bit more from Amazon Prime (next day delivery).

[KarlR]

I use HID-bulbs for my cacti indoors and couldn't be happier with the results. Of course, for the purpose of sowing just a bit early in the season it's completely overkill with HID, so with that in mind I'd probably just opt for cheap fluorescent light or maybe that IKEA kit which looked nice if you're only sowing a few species.

[claytablet]

In response to jfabiao's question about the Swede's grow lights. They work very well.
The only thing is that algae and various molds love them too in case you wanted to use them for sowing.
I have the two tiered version, the top tier is a bit closer to the light. The bottom one holds the Tiny Ones and some succulents that I have kept going over the winter. They grew nicely but probably should be placed closer to the light.
The top one holds an inherited mixed lot of lithops. I haven't dared repot them but they have been assiduously making new heads. So I assume they are happy.

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C&S seem to like it more than the various herbs and lettuces that originally came with it.




edited for typo

[claytablet]

P.S.: this is the sowing experiment.

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Can't remember how old. Maybe December-ish. Spring and sunlight work better.

JB

[jfabiao]

Thank you, JB. I am even more tempted to try those lights with things that don't do well over winter for me (Dorstenia comes to my mind immediately).

[claytablet]

They have some new models that you can use as "spots".
And you don't have to buy the metal 'greenhouse'. The lamps are easily screwed to for example IVAR shelving boards for easy height change. Heat development is near to nothing (LED).
JB

[DavidH]

Just started to experiment using LED's for seed growing, got a couple of mid priced 14W 225 LED panels off ebay, had a chance to measure there output - so for those interested -

[Suculentia]

We grow in Spain thousands of seeds with this lights
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sylvania-Grolu ... nia+grolux

We have to use it because our winter is so hard and we have to grow the seeds in a room aconditonated, and it is working very well. Anyway I would like to test the leds, maybe it works better.