What kind of lights do you use?

[MOFishin]

Fluorescent, LED or other? Why?

[Lindsaylew82]

I got a real cheap setup from Walmart. About $30. It's about 4' long, double fluorescent bulbs. I need seriously 2 more, and WAY stronger bulbs than are in there!

[rainbowgardener]

Lindsay, what do you mean by stronger? Fluorescent bulbs mainly come in T5 or T8. If you need more light intensity, just move the lights closer to the plants.

Many of us just use the cheap shop light fixtures with two (or four) four foot fluorescent tubes. The lights need to be just a couple inches above the plants, hung so they can be raised as the plants grow.

I had to make a new seed starting operation this winter, because I moved. Some of the bulbs I got looked like fluorescent tubes, but were (supposedly) LED's and supposed to give the same light intensity as the T8's. But they were cheap (which LED's aren't usually) and I don't think they worked right. I think that may have been one of the problems my plants were having.

[MOFishin]

Anyone ever used fluorescent and LED together?

[SQWIB]

Anyone ever used fluorescent and LED together?

Yes,

I know its an old post but figured it would help someone.

This is a 10 bulb setup, I modified a 4 bulb shoplight by adding 4 LED bulbs plus there is a strip of Led's glued on each side of the shop light housing giving me a total of 10 bulbs.


Testing the strip led.







Here' s how I mounted the 4 LED bulbs, sorry I don't have more pics.


I'll take more photos and start another thread

[PaulF]

I use 4 foot double bulb shop lights. The fixtures are at lest 10 years old and purchased at Wal-Mart or Home Depot for about $5 each way back then. They come with T-12 bulbs and even though most now have T-5s or 8s, T-12s are still available. I use one cool white and one bright white bulb per fixture. After about three years use, I change out the bulbs to be sure they are bright enough.

I am tempted to go with the LEDs that look like fluorescent bulbs but my cheapness will not allow me to spend the money while what I have works. Besides, they look awfully bright to me.

[MOFishin]

I had forgotten about this post. I bought several of the cheap 1'x1' LED lights with over 200 of the tiny lights. Things are going well so far. But I think balancing the different lights in the spectrum is something I'm going to have to learn. I kinda wish that instead of several cheap ones I had bought a bigger one, that you can adjust the light spectrum, like different ratio of red to blue for different stages of the plants' growth.