Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

We added grow lights in the green house, but I read a little saying Tomatoes don't like having lights 24 hrs a day. Anyone done this with tomatoes?

hello, while all plants do grow undr 24hrs of light, and there is reasearch out there to support that its ok and works. there is also research as well as understand of plant cycles to see that at least a 4 hour dark period is best i run 6 hours of dark and 18 on.

it gives a chance for the stomata to close. for lettuce this makes it crisper. the plants also stretch at night. so the grow a bit faster.

ever heard of the rule of inverse square? check it out. move those lights way they hell down:) the more powerful light you can get the the tomatoe(ie the closer the lights) the more buds, the more buds the more tomatoes:)

indoor marijuana growers understand this very well. thats why they air/water cool their reflectors, so they can cool the light down enough to get it 12 inches from the bulb. more buds.

lights are very expensive to run and buy, the most efficient bulb on the market is still the 1000w hps or mh. like is said earlier to receive the benefits those plants need to be closer


thats my two sense, good luck

Thank you very much for the info. We will give it a try.

Depending on the application and layout of the lights, watt for watt, the 600w HPS is actually the most efficient at 150 lumens of light output per watt, as opposed to 140 lumens per watt for the 1000w HPS. I can't remember the exact output for a 1000w MH, but they are far less efficient again.

...and yes, plants do prefer a sleep every night just like us.

True dat, however 1000 hps delivers more lumens per sq ft of grow space... Inverse square, more lumens in a smaller place means more flower power

good lord that looks like tomato gitmo

Gitmo?