Any Experience with "Grow Lights"?

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Oxalis
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Joined: 22 Jun 2017, 20:20
Location: Michigan, U.S.
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Any Experience with "Grow Lights"?

Post by Oxalis » 23 Sep 2018, 00:58

Hello, just curious if anyone has had any experience with these red-blue "grow lights" I keep seeing at the hardware store? I have a great space for plants in Steve's room, but it's in a corner away from the window. I can tell these plants just aren't getting enough sunlight. I would consider purchasing one of these lights to help them get through our dull and dreary Michigan winter if it's actually worth the price, especially the LEDs. Any thoughts?

Here's an example of one from Amazon: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com ... L1500_.jpg
I <3 Stevie, my Russian tortoise!

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lin
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Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 11:27

Re: Any Experience with "Grow Lights"?

Post by lin » 23 Sep 2018, 13:29

Hi Oxalis.
As it goes our Jon does and hopefully as soon as he can he will answer you with some of his good info.

Lin

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Jon
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Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 13:34

Re: Any Experience with "Grow Lights"?

Post by Jon » 23 Sep 2018, 15:28

Hi there,

I do indeed have experience and have been waiting for a chance to talk about it. I've been meaning to write a guide for growing tortoise food, using a box and a floodlight.

The idea behind the red/blue LED in the image, is to emphaise that plants respond most to particular frequencies of light. However, it's a bit of a misleading concept and the study it's based on is defunct as a standalone. They do work; however, eye protection can be an issue and assuming a similar model to the one in the image, the biggest issue you will run into is efficiency outside of initial cost.

I would always recommend a simple white light (i.e. broad spectrum, like the sun) as I've found they perform better and are safer; I found 3000 - 4000 Kelvin rated have worked the best. You can also find some extremely efficient LEDs (~200 lumens/ Watt, If I recall the one pictured is around ~40 lm/W)) which are generally inexpensive. For example, buying a 200W led white floodlight for very little would most likely out-perform the one pictured (you have to be careful with wattage and effective 'wattage equivalents').

Really, options mostly depend on how DIY and electronic confident you are, as it can be very cheap / efficient. I won't go into any more detail at this point, however this site I found helpful/accurate on the DIY front.

http://ledgardener.com/samsung-lm561c-b ... g-touches/
https://ledgardener.com/forum/viewforum ... 84d8e5f048

Feel free to ask any questions, I'm more than happy to help on more details.

Jon
Jon - The Tortoise Table

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