Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Quick question I haven't really found covered here yet, probably just not looking hard enough.

I need to add some lights for the plants in my system, cheap and energy efficient is what I am looking for, was wondering if you just needed a full spectrum light or what you actually needed for the plants. I was looking at some full spectrum CFL's like they have here:

http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com/23w_powercompact_65_prd1.htm

I think I can pickup some locally and hook them up over my GB, was also looking at some 2-4 foot long florescent tubes that were full spectrum. I have also seen mention of HID lights here but I am not really sure what those are so much except you can buy them for your car lights.

So what is the recommendation for cheap effective lights for the grow bed?

Sun light

I take it you have never been to Cleveland Ohio, I am not exactly sure what you mean by sunlight, I have been keeping track and in the last twenty days the closest thing we have had to sun was "mostly cloudy" on two different days that I saw the sun for a few minutes.

The forecast for the next 10 days, nasty, I think there is one day coming up that is supposed to be mostly cloudy again so I might have a chance to see the sun come through for a minute or two that day.

So besides sun light, for artificial light any suggestions?

I'd go for the 4ft fluoro banks. You can get the hanging type with rain cover for outside. You can use a number of different globes in them from daylight to red and blue spectrum. Either get one double and add to it later or pick up a four bank. You can remove the starters if you don't need all of them going at once.

Hi

i am interested in the results of this thread as well, I have a friend and he is sure that in the not to distant future there will be people jumping fences ratting food from gardens etc as the economies downturn further, he is after a system for his garage, I suggested shylights etc but he still wants grow type lights as well

Bree

Hope it doesn't get that bad. But most people today live from one pay cheque to another. Your friend is probably better off changing the tin on the garage for clear plastic sheets. In the event of a big collapse there may not be power to run the lights.

Whole topic on LED grow lights.... viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3047

And a search of the forum with "LED" will turn up lots of hits... also a thread on an Hawaiian classroom experiment....

Seek... and ye shall find...

I would be inclined to check out websites that cover dope growing as they would be further advanced than here, alot of what we do here is experimental, it comes down to what you are prepared to pay too

I'd go with Duff on that, re 4ft fluros, cool white is all you need for growth, preferably T5's. You should be able to pick them up from salvage yards. Bit harder over here as we are a bit backward.
Keep them about 2" from the tops of the plants.

AFAIK... red and blue wavelengths are the preferred options... especially for "flowering" plants...

We're talking cheap in daylight, already enough red in the spectrum.
After intensive research I think this is what BK is talking about http://www.rollitup.org/general-marijua ... ctrum.html

You can now get CFL "growlights"... like the old style "grolux" fluros....

Ok, so I found the T5 Fluorescent bulbs at my local lowes, I think that will probably be the first choice since they are pretty cheap and very energy efficient, however it might be nice to have something that doesn't have to sit right on top of the plants.

Any thoughts on HID or Metal Halide lights? I see I can get both also at lowes and they seem like they might do better. Thanks for the suggestions thus far, so far I have eliminated the LED lights as they are way to expensive to buy and I am leaning towards the T5's unless I can get some more info on the HID or Metal Halide types (saw them mentioned a couples times around here, doesn't seem to be a ton of info though).

Metal halide for growth Hi pressure sodium(HPS) for flowering ,best bet would be HPS ballasts with phillips son-t-agro type bulbs which give more blue light than normal HPS lamps.