How Many Grow Lights Do I Need?

If you have an interior hydroponics set up then it is likely that you will need grow lights to give your plants the light then need. Naturally choosing the right type of grow light will be important but it is also vital that you understand the amount of coverage your grow lights are likely to provide and how the light they produce will affect your plants.

Your choice of grow lights will be based on the types of plants you are growing although your budget will also pay an important part in the decision. You will also want to consider the type of lamp you are installing and the spectral output they provide in relation to the plant’s growth stage.

The size of your hydroponic growing area will determine the wattage of your lamps you are likely to want in your grow room. This is because the further your plants are from your light source, the less light they will be able to receive and subsequently the amount of growth they will be able to achieve.

Grow Room Size/Grow Light Wattage:

Eight by eight foot area = 1000W
Six by six foot area = 600W
Five by five foot area = 400W
Three by three foot area = 250W
Two by two foot area =150-175W
One and a half foot by one and a half foot area = 100W

These wattages are provided just as a guide and it is worth remembering that if you have a larger growing area and require more powerful lighting that an effective ballast should be included in your system. Also bear in mind that more lights mean more heat so that you will also want to consider fans or extraction units to ensure that your plants are not scorched and a suitable growing temperature is maintained.

source hydroponicsguide.co.uk

Grow Lights in hydroponics gardening

Along with water, hydroponics plant nutrients, Co2 and oxygen, grow lights is the key basic component, required by plants to live. Providing additional light is necessary for indoor gardening. Furthermore, light should resemble the sunlight as much as possible. In order to achieve that goal several types of lights are used: incandescent, fluorescent, high intensity discharge or HID lamps and sulfur lights. While there are many other types of lighting, only the mentioned above are recommended for indoor gardening. The major concern with other types of lights is that they do not produce light in the appropriate spectrum, required by plants.

Though typical widely used incandescent lamps fit any ordinary light socket, this type of lighting is considered to be the least effective in lighting your garden in comparison with other types of lighting. Incandescent lights produce light in the red spectrum; that is why such lamps are commonly covered with a blue coating in order to increase the amount of blue spectrum in the produced light. In general, incandescent lights are considered to be poor options for indoor gardening needs.

In comparison with incandescent lamps, fluorescent lights produce more light with lower energy consumption. However, the light, produced by fluorescent lamps, is not intensive enough and cannot penetrate more than 6" – 8". Light, produced by fluorescent lamps, is usually simply insufficient to provide normal growing of plants, vegetables and flowers. The only application, where it is possible to use fluorescent light, is growing seedlings, cuttings, or some particular plants with low light requirements, such as orchids.

High intensity discharge lights, also known as HID lights, are currently the most effective lights for indoor gardening. Metal halide (MH) and high pressure sodium (HPS) grow lamps are two major types of HID lights. Each type produces light in a particular range: for example, metal halide lights generate blue spectrum light similar to the full summer sun, and high pressure sodium lights produce light in red and yellow spectrum, resembling the autumn sunlight.

Though high pressure sodium lamps usually are more expensive (by about 10%-20%) than metal halide lamps, they are more durable with extended lifecycle. Besides, HPS lights feature higher lumen output (97-150 lumens per watt consumed) and lose only about 5% of their brightness after one year of use (for comparison, MH bulbs produce about 70-115 lumens per watt and lose up to 15-20% of their initial brightness within a year).

Irrespectively to the particular type of lighting in use, it is recommended to replace lights on the timely manner: MH bulbs – after 12-18 months, and HPS bulbs – after 24 months of work.Basically, metal halide lamps is the more preferred type of lighting for plants, when they grow, and high pressure sodium lamps suit best for flowering plants. However, the discussion on which type of lighting is best is still open among gardeners. Each type of lights offers its own advantages, as well as disadvantages, so it is often a matter of personal choice, preferences, growing environment and needs. The scope of this article is to provide plain information on the available types of lighting for indoor hydroponic gardening, while leaving readers enough space for personal decisions on which product to prefer. By the way, recently a new type of lights appeared. The so-called conversion systems allow switching between MH and HPS lights when it is necessary simply by changing the bulb. Though this type of lighting offers certain benefits, conversion systems are still pretty expensive. More information on particular types of HID grow lights used in hydroponics systems will be provided in the next set of hydroponics guides.

How Indoor Grow Lights Could Be Useful For Your Garden

Grow lights for plant that are kept in door should aim to produce the most advantageous light for the plant to be exposed to. Naturally, gardening outdoors is the best way to grow, but for people living in a residence that doesn’t have a private yard, indoor gardening is a wonderful alternative. When plants are grown outdoors, they rely on sunlight to provide them with a full light spectrum range. Because there is not enough sunlight available indoors, hydroponic lights are used to imitate what the sun's light spectrum can do for plants.

Indoor gardening is also a great option for those living in harsh climates where plants have a hard time growing, such as in the desert during the hot summers. If you want to be an eco friendly champion, the best option is to set you indoor garden next to a window with plenty of natural light, if your house has such a space. You’ll save money on grow lights and your power bill.

LED bulbs are much more environmentally friendly than fluorescent bulbs. Though the LED plant light was initially used for display screens in electronics but have now been introduced to all kinds of settings, just at home use, office use and most of all, to grow indoor plants. Indoor grow lights are commonly used in hydroponics to provide lighting to plants. This is because, for an indoor garden, indoor grow lights are a suitable alternative to sunlight. When deciding what kind or kinds of indoor grow lights might work best for your hydroponic "babies," consult with a professional or research supplier websites.

Plants need light for photosynthesis, and thus if you are growing plants indoors, you need to compensate for the lack of sunlight. What you are trying to do is recreate sunlight for your plants, and this is where grow lights come into play. Of course, grow lamps are not as bright as sunlight, so indoor gardeners typically leave the lights turned on the plants for a longer length of time than natural light might occur outdoors.

There is an easy way to tell if your plants are too close to the grow lights. Simply place your hand just above your plants. If you can feel any heat on your hand that is coming from the light, then your plants are too close. Move the light up higher until you can no longer feel any heat touching the plants.

The LED indoor grow lights are highly efficient and burn at much lower temperatures. They are more expensive than the rest, but that is paid back with not having to use a cooling system. The lights use only 20%-30% of the electricity the other systems use. That will reduce the cost of the electricity bill. Another important point to remember is that as the plants grow, they get closer to the light bulb. So, even if you had the light at the proper distance from your plants, you may need to move it again.


article source: http://www.articlecity.com/articles/home_improvement/article_5855.shtml

Hydroponics Lighting: Blue Spectrum V.S. Red-Orange Spectrum

Hydroponics Light plays a major part in your success of your hydroponics project. Most hydroponic gardens are indoors and as such they need to have lighting of some kind. While you may be tempted to try using incandescent bulbs and lamps for light in your hydroponics system, they don't provide the right kind of light that your plants will need to thrive and grow. Hydroponics systems need full spectrum lighting that mimics the light from the sun. Specific types of hydroponics gardens will also need a specific type of lighting.

Many of you that are looking to put together a hydroponics kit will find that there is a range of hydroponics lighting on the market.

Hydroponic vegetables grow best in blue spectrum light, which is a cooler form of light. Metal Halide lights are the most popular form of blue spectrum lighting. Hydroponics flowering plants grow best in red-orange light. The best type of red-orange light is the high pressure sodium light (HPS).

Blue spectrum light is great for leafy plants, such as Lettuce, Radish, or Collard. It also helps to keep the plant nice and compact. Many can find the plants in their hydroponics garden getting leggy as it strains for the light, blue light helps to combat this. This is the best type of hydroponics system light for a primary light source. The average Metal Halide light gives around ten thousand hours of good light. After that it will start to put out less and less light. The average Metal Halide light sold can put out a range of light from 175 watts to 1000 watts or more. The wattage output you choose depends on how big your hydroponics system is. Are you just putting together a small homemade hydroponics kit or are you setting up a larger hydroponics garden?

High Pressure Sodium lights producing an orange-red spectrum last around eighteen thousand hours of use. It's best for flowering plants, such as paper whites and iris. The orange-red light stimulates plants hormones, which makes for more flowering in the plant. Be careful about placing a young plant under red-orange light. It may grow very quickly but you will see only vertical growth and it will become lanky and thin. This is because of the lack of blue spectrum light available to the new plant. The average wattage is about the same for red-orange lights, ranging from 175 to 1000 watts. Of course if your looking to cover more area then you can find professional grow lights in any spectrum with a higher wattage.

The best way to light your hydroponics system seems to be with a combination of blue and red-orange light, to keep plants compact and flowering. Or you can simply purchase a full spectrum light. You can buy fluorescent lights for this. They are available in tubes or compact bulbs. Fluorescent lighting is mostly used to grow seedlings, but it will certainly grow a plant to maturity. This type of lighting can be an easy way to light your hydroponics system without the complication of hooking up both blue and red-orange lights or remembering which is which.


source http://hydroponicssystemsguide.blogspot.com/2011/10/hydroponics-lighting-blue-spectrum-vs.html

Role of hydroponic and HPS grow lights in the fuller growth of the indoor plants

Some of the gardeners are able to arrange some sunlight for their indoor plants through having enough windows around. If you don’t have such set up, you can use hydroponic grow lights. Fluorescent lights are also used to provide light, which is vital for the growth of indoor plants, but such type of low intensity light is appropriate for seedlings and the plants which need little light. So, for the fuller growth, the option of fluorescent lights is not that good. High intensity discharge lights are needed for the growth of more than 6 inches.

You can either use such lights independently inside your indoors or can also use it in a sun room, where it would add to the strength and vitality of the plants. Grow lights are an important part of hydroponic supplies that cannot be compromised, as without appropriate grow lights you cannot grow healthy indoor plants.

Lights help in speedy growth of the plants because of their natural need for photosynthesis. So the indoor gardeners use different types of indoor grow lights. You can find LED grow lights, HPS grow lights and discount grow lights in some of the stores but all these are not the same lights. HPS grow lights are high pressure sodium lights and they resemble very closely to the sunlight. That is the reason it is very popular with indoor plant growers.

These lights are a source of red and orange color spectrum, which is considered to be vital for the growth, maturity, fruiting and flowering of the plant. For vegetation, blue light spectrum is ideal but it needed more in the initial stages of the plant and is not very much effective when the plant is fully grown. HPS indoor grow lights are long lasting and energy efficient but these lights are amazingly powerful as the intensity produced by them is six times higher than that of incandescent bulbs.

Plant grow lights such as HPS lamps are used along with other indoor equipment, such as ballast, reflectors, cooling system and a metal halide light bulb. A metal halide light bulb emits blue spectrum light, so if an HPS lamp and a metal halide lamp are placed in the same reflector, the resultant light is the most vital light needed for the comprehensive growth of the plant and it provides sufficient nutrition to the plant since the time it is in the form of a seedling till it grows up fully and attains maturity.

article source: http://www.amazines.com/Gardening/article_detail.cfm?articleid=3044563