the shop lights are better than the “blurple” ones you mentioned earlier?
In your price range, yes. There are some blurple lights that are decent, but they arent cheap generally and they are also hard on the eyes…
I’ve had good luck with them but i have them in a spare room with the door closed. they are hard on the eyes. i use uvb rated sunglasses when im in there. they grow pretty good though.
Do fluorescent bulbs give off any UV light? I’m guessing no because mine are 6500K which are in the bluish-white range of visible light?
there are grow bulbs you can buy that do. i got some years ago at kmart. not as bright as 6500k more like 5000k i think.
they’ve come down a lot in the last 5 yrs. i got my viparspectra 600w for $200. paid $300 for my 1st one 5yrs. ago.
If you have the money and lack the time or DIY electrical ability, buy professionally built LEDs such as the superb offerings from Timber. I have a couple of wonderful cob rigs from Timber, some from the now closed Tasty LED and some small strip lights from the local hydro store. I also have played with cheap off the shelf shop lights from Home Depot and when I first started out with indoor gardening I had a couple of the blurple lights from Platinum which I encourage folks to avoid.
My conclusion so far: The Timber cob lights (Bridgelux Vera 7 and Cree) are fantastic, full spectrum and well worth the money. They are dimmable and so you can easily control output as well as room temperature. I grew peppers from seed to pod this winter as well as lettuces and even had a couple of small heirloom tomatoes. Right now I have a small kumquat and a blood orange tree which seem very happy under them. I am also keeping some blueberries I had ordered too early going until it’s warm enough to put them outside.
For seed starting this year my wife is having decent luck under cheap Home Depot 35w plug in shop lights. Her zinnias are doing great and I have some lettuces and other greens in pots to tide us over until we can get some stuff planted outside.
I’ve ordered another pair of CPU coolers and 30W COBs. Does anyone want a pic by pic of the steps?
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Please do, always wanted to do a build.
This seems like an area that is crying out for mass-produced all-in-one item. I appreciate the ingenuity I see here, but why?
I impulsively picked up a Ferry-Morse T-5 setup last spring on an end-of the season clearance for $28. It was still overpriced. Had one two foot long bulb and a reflector that was about 3 mils thicker than heavy-duty aluminum foil. A non-adjustable (and none too sturdy) stand.
It worked, in that I was able to stack stuff beneath a couple small small seed trays to get them close to the light and start a few tomatoes.
Honestly, in this day and age it ought to be possible to get a two T-5 adjustable setup for under $50 and have something unobjectionable looking for the house.
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my father used to use plain fluorescent shop lights on home made wood stands to grow out his seedlings and they grew fabulous but he only used them for about 10days after spouting then they went into the greenhouse to be transplanted to grow some more before being put out in the garden. he kept the lights about 4in. from the plants. unfortunately , if you want to grow out a whole plant its going to take the better more powerfull leds to get it done. the sun is not easily mimicked. if you’re not putting at least $200-$300 into your lights they aren’t going to thrive. some argue much more expensive than that. even if you engineer your own cob set up, it still isn’t cheap.
For a casual home owner wanting to grow out a flat of seedling tomatoes $300 is excessive in my opinion. I can think of a million things I’d rather drop $300 on before a high end grow light. That’s just me looking at my own budget and prioritizing spending.
I purchased a 48 inch led shop light at Sam’s club that is 5000k and 4500 lumens for $36. It’s been fantastic on the flat of tomatoes I sowed. I’m sure a $300 grow light would do much better. But I think the cheap light I bought has prepared my seedling well. If I was growing weed or had a nursery that was my business I’d make more substantial investments.
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Really good lights are really expensive but you get what you pay for https://spectrumkingled.com. The good ones are a little rich for my blood.
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LED technology has gotten crazy cheap and efficient in the last couple years. You can get a ready to use fixture for as little as $75 shipped or $100 if you prefer more natural looking light. Keep in mind these are VERY powerful lights that can be used to grow a respectably yielding tomato / pepper plant or provide enough coverage for 4-6 sqft of growing leafy greens / cuttings / seed starting - and unlike florescent bulbs you can hang them as high as 1-2’ from the top of your plants versus a couple inches. The final nail in the coffin is that LEDs have a lifespan of 5-10 years before they lose any significant amount of brightness/efficiency which is 2-3X longer than any fluorescent bulb.
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Amazes me that some people still use incandescent bulbs for their homes… I guess in the winter they can double as a room heater! In the summer they are crazy inefficient tho, especially when you consider the cost to remove the unnecessary heat from your home via AC!
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This is the third year I am trying indoor strawberry with 100% LED grow light. I think I am more experienced and getting better result. Family think this is the best tasting strawberries 
from 2 weeks ago:
yesterday:
some early harvest:
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Those berries look great! I am also growing strawberries indoors with grow lights (see post there).
Couple of questions:
- What grow lights are you using?
- How are you fertilizing them?
- Are you doing any foliage pruning or managment that you wouldnt normally have to do outside?
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- LED grow light panel (mostly claimed 45W but actual wattage is ~25W)
- GH Maxigro and Maxibloom
- No leave management per se, only took out old baby leave. I only keep these strawberry during the winter, I do not know much about any longevity.
Your NFT system setup is quite advanced!
The DWC system on the top started about 6 weeks later than the potted ones.
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Plants look healthy, how long do they keep producing? Where do you get plants in the winter and what do you do with them in the summer? I have a strong aversion to purple lights so I retrofitted cobs into my previously purple strip and panel lights. Efficiency is much higher with cobs or more modern white strips, usually. What fertilizer are you using?
BTW for those interested in build your own lights, especially in shelf configurations, Id highly recommend these and they are quite cheap right now…
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/bxeb-l0560z-35e2000-c-b3/bridgelux
175 lumen/watt of 3500k light is very good…
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Thanks! It’s actually not too complicated, just a water pump, air pump, some PVC pipe and a 4x4" vinyl post as channels for the water. The hardest part was finding the correct fittings for everything and the lights since they were DIY. But these days you can buy an off the shelf light fixture that has very good performance.
I see you are/were battling fungus gnats / aphids. Any suggestions for completely annihilating them? Seems that if I miss just one or two they come right back in a few weeks.
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