Fluorescent Grow Lights
by Robski
(Queens)
I'm utilizing a closet for my plant (4'x 3') and it gets hot in there. My hygrometer is showing 85 degrees and 60% humidity. Utilizing one intake fan, exhaust fan etc.. also I'm using a humidifier which adds to the heat but in very small increments. I'm using 2 sets of T5's. My question is: are there any other lights I can use besides HPS or any high output light or high electrical consuming lights? I would prefer to use regular light bulbs, colored light bulbs, or a combination maybe. And can you please be specific so I can purchase these before I start growing. My mother plant is approx. 3 ft - 3 1/2 tall. I currently have 2 clones growing. What can I use that will give me strong enough lumens without using those super high energy consuming light bulbs? Thanks for your expertise and time!
Answer: Robski- most plants (even light-loving ones) can be grown healthy as clones, seedlings, and small plants in the vegetative state (15 inches tall or less) under regular 4 foot long fluorescent shop lights. This is true because it takes much less light energy for a plant to grow healthy in the vegetative stage than it does to grow properly during the flowering stage.
If you want to use regular fluorescent lights for vegetative growth, I have two tips. First- when you go to buy bulbs for your light fixtures, you will want to choose the bulbs with the highest lumen rating. Second- the lights need to be placed very close to the plants....about 3 inches from the tops. Regular fluorescent light looses its power very quickly with distance. If your veg plants get much taller than 15 inches, you will need a stronger light source to keep supporting their healthy growth from top to bottom- such as the T5's.
For flowering / fruiting plants, regular fluorescent light is just not enough. The minimum you need is T5 light. Unfortunately, there is no way to produce lots of intense light for flowering plants without using a moderate amount of electricity and without producing heat in the grow room. The more light you use (a 600 W HPS, for example) the more electricity you use and the more heat you produce.
So, for the time being, your best solution may be to stick with your T5 lights (at least during the flowering stage). My only other suggestion would be to check out a compact fluorescent light in a horizontal reflector, which is likely to be just as expensive as another T5 light. Hope this helps, and Happy Growing!
AffordableGarden Design&Setup
Hi everyone, Jason from Jason's Indoor Guide here. When I got started with hydroponic gardening more than 24 years ago, my first garden used rockwool cubes and B.C. Nutrients....and I remember thinking to myself yeah, sure, there may be a lot of advantages to gardening with hydroponics, for example there are very few pest problems, therefore very little pest control, no weeding, no plowing or tilling the soil, no soil testing or having to add things into the garden soil, no watering the garden....but for someone who just wants to grow their own vegetables and have more control over their food supply and the quality of the food that they eat, the cost of constantly having to buy grow media and hydroponic nutrients makes this an expensive hobby for most people...
Epic Nutrient Change
I suppose when you take into consideration how much money you save NOT
having to buy food at the grocery store, it is surely cheaper to grow
your own food hydroponically even with the cost of high quality
nutrients. Nevertheless, I didn't have a whole lot of money to work with
and I needed to make my efforts as affordable and effective as
possible....and in the last 24 years I HAVE learned a thing or two!
As you browse through Jason's Indoor Guide, you will notice all of the
systems that I use personally are homemade systems. As I got 3 or 4
years of experience under my belt, I quickly adopted a preference to
standing water systems and systems that use expanded clay pellets or
lava rock, because the media is re-usable and it eliminates a huge
operating expense. So once a hydroponic system is built, garden
maintenance is minimal- check and adjust the nutrient solution daily,
and to change it completely every 2 weeks....and the biggest operating
cost is the hydroponic nutrients. (and the electric bill, lol)...
Homemade Cloner
And, regarding the cost of the nutrients....I experimented for about 3 years with making different compost teas and nutrient teas, but there is still a lot of expense $$$ associated with making high quality nutrient teas....like kelp meal, liquid seaweed, rock dust, bat guano, un-Sulfured molasses, worm castings. You can eliminate a lot of this expense by becoming an expert at making high-quality colloidal humus compost, and use your properly made compost as the basis of your hydroponic nutrient solution.
Unfortunately, I have been gardening for over 24 years and I have only
just recently mastered this difficult skill....and even then, only
because I happened to find a very easy to follow, high quality technique
and decided to follow the instructions to the letter. I produced more
high quality compost in just one week than I was able to use in a whole
year! If you can master the technique, I highly recommend it. It is one of the top 3 things you can do to
increase the productivity of your food production efforts, while at the
same time decreasing the amount of effort required to grow all of your
own food, and decreasing the total cost of operating your food
production system.
And when I say decrease operating costs, I mean decrease them to almost
ZERO, especially if you are producing your own nutrients...
High Efficiency
Hydroponics
The ultimate solution to eliminate the cost of your hydroponic nutrients: Imagine a hydroponic system that does not require you to buy any nutrients, does not require you to make your own compost, and does not require you to brew your own nutrient tea. Seriously! No cost and no effort as far as providing nutrients to your plants! Plus, at the end of the gardening cycle you harvest all of your garden vegetables, PLUS YOU HARVEST FISH from the system--->
Aquaponics
This solution is aquaponics. If you are serious about producing all of your own food and being self-sufficient, this is the ultimate solution for reducing expenses (as much as possible), reducing the total amount of work required, and maximizing the productivity of your gardening efforts. I have been gardening for over 24 years, and it is the perfect food production solution in my opinion.
Besides mastering how to make high quality compost, learning aquaponics is one of the top 3 things you can do to increase your garden productivity, reduce your total costs, and reduce your total work. The product that I learned from is called Aquaponics4you. With all of my hydroponic gardening experience, the first time I came across the Aquaponics4you product I knew immediately that it was something very special! Place an aquaponics system outdoors and use the sun instead of grow lights, and you have reduced every garden expense to nearly ZERO!
The Same System/ 10 Weeks Later!
