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solomon

Lights for peres / seedlings

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It's been asked before in the past but quality does seem to change with these.

What is everybody using to grow their pereskiopsis and cacti seedlings under lights?
LED? CFL? Fluro T8 or T5s?


I have a square meter I would like to light artificially, how many watts and what type of light would you use for this?
I currently have 2x 35w and 1x 24w CFL cool daylight spectrum to work with. Would this be sufficient?

Also, does anyone have experience heating things with a heating cable? Just interested in safety with one of these compared to regular heating mats.

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Can anybody help me out here, I'm a bit of an electrical noob.

Have any of you put T8 fluros into a fixture with a wall plug?
I have looked at the aquarium style lights and they are really expensive, like $150 for a twin 36w setup.

Can the fixtures from Bunnings connect to a wall plug?

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I was successfully growing pere and seed in a fish tank lined with paper (to reflect the light back in). Had two shitty bedside table lamps with two "Philips 24W Cool White Edison Screw CFL T2".

Eventually moved the peres outside in a greenhouse style setup as I was getting bugs. Seeds continue to grow under the light with no signs of sunburn.

No idea if any of this is actually the right way of doing it. hahah. I just know that it sort of worked for me!

 

As far as the fluorescent batten lights lights fitting in to wall plugs go, you'll just have to go instore and check. They have displays above where the product is stocked. Some have cords but most are designed to be hardwired in

 

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LED is the best for obvious reasons (PPFD)

 

Ofcourse any old light source should work for this purpose, i doubt anything would not sprout under your lights

 

 

 

 

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Hi soloman, It's been a while since I used lights, but used them a lot back when. The 3 CFL's you have should do for what you want, but generally with plants the more light the better. The fittings are easy to get from Bunnings and to wire in line on an extension cord. LED's are great, they are cheap to run and run cold, which is so good here in the tropics. The only real problem is that they loose lumens quick over distance, not a problem for seedlings. Mate use what ya got and go from there.

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Cheers for the help guys.
The set up I had is fine for what I want to achieve with peres and cacti seedlings.

However the mice found their way in last night and ate some fresh grafts (Ariocarpus, Obregonia...) :(
Trying to construct something they can't get into now.

6x 36w T8s on the way for another cactus cabinet. Will post pics when its done
 

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the palnts would be so short and not so important as to penetration like with other taller leafy plants.  LED are expensive.  Flouros work well but are quite bad for the environment.  a "wall plug" should be fine as long as evything has teh proper ballast, which it shold theorteically if you are buying the fixture.  spending $!50 for 36w from a pet shop for plants that tend to spend lots of energy protecting against UV type light seems a bit.....sensless...  hardware store lights work fine.  make an even mix of both extremes of common t5 or t8 type bulbs (meaning 3500k and 6500k +/-) and you will be happy. 

 

led are nice cause they are said to be nicer on the environment.  they are very directional and hence use less power.  but in small numbers of seedlings the difference of power is probably barely noticeable.  flourescent are cheap, easy but non directional and not great at distance, but with seedlings and grafts the plant height is very easy to control and so is the distance between light and plant.

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thanks for pointing out the environmental aspect with fluros Kada, I hadn't considered that.
I will be looking at LEDs in the next couple of years.

Scored the 6x 36w set up second hand for under $50 which is nice.
They are in double 36w fixtures each with a wall plug and made by a local light distributor .


Good to see you around again, I learnt a lot from your website back in the day

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How hot are are peoples ballasts/fixtures?
I have been told that they run at about 60c/140f and this is normal.

However I have a couple that are hotter than the others, almost too hot to touch.
I will be turning these off until I can confirm their safety.

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fluoro ballasts do tend to get hot.  thats normal.  60 seems right.  i tend to start thinking safety when plastic starts getting that yellow/brown color.  cfls are shitty in the sense they are fixed together.  but tubes are fairly easy to add wire and put the ballast away from the light in a more free airflow environment.  but personally with tubes never had the feeling they got too hot.  any flouro trouble i have ever had was with the cfl types.

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going to borrow a friends laser thermometer thingy and check for hot spots.

the heating I was referring to was on the metal fixture itself which is a commercial job.
the tubes themselves are not hot or showing discoloration and the wooden roof the fixtures are attached to isn't hot either.

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that metal thing is essentially just acting like a radiating heat unit from the peices inside that are creating the heat.  you can take those peices and place them outside the metal box with a fan blowing the heat away if its an issue.  a few wont be an issue, but many peopel growing lots fo things in a room might like heat exhaust.

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