Lighting

I just bought an LED lamp (well better half gave it to me for xmas, last birthday and next one too) from grow northern. I just gave up looking for the box of cuphooks I bought to hang the thing up. <mutters> Super piece of kit though. not Cheap but excellent quality

Forget about lighting. With those varieties you should invest in a fire extinguisher!

unless you want to spend £70 on a 150w blue envirolite,the only option is on a south facing window sill.
thats the problem with geminating seeds to early...no sunlight.

LED lights are a great bit of kit.
the only problem is they get a bit warm and you cant change the bulbs from blue to red.
there good if there just for seedlings and cuttings but you cant flower under them.with the envirolite you just change the bulb when needed.
blue-seedlings
red-flowering

this made me laugh!!!!
in my opinion the hotter the better!!!

Iv found a LED indoor grow light for under £20, is this a good pirice, they are new and
emit either red or blue lights i would put the link up so people can see but im not sure on the stance of doing that on the forum!

do you know what wattage they are?

LED Grow Light - PAR 30 - 90 led's (Red & Blue) on eBay (end time 08-Feb-11 09:15:50 GMT)

here is the link for it, hope i dont get into trouble for it!!

there tiny little lights.4.5w is enough for about 4-6 little plants.and to small for flowering.
to be honest you would need about 8-10 of those if you wanted to get anything decent from them.

plus you also need the unit for it to screw in to.you cant use them in a household socket..
the price does mount up.
a 150w envirolite bulb is £15 and a budget unit is about £40.and they are sooo much better.

have you got a link to the site i could get this from??

thank you

just google hydroponic shops/wholesalers.

The one I have, has three cooling fans and is designed for vegetative growth which is good for starting off vegetables of any sort. It's only necessary to give artificial light until things warmup/brighten up outdoors and natural light is available in our greenhouses so in my humble it is deffo suitable for purpose. I have just replaced my sont agro 4oow metal halide lamp with the led set up.

This is just my opinion:

I have a Metal Halide growing lamp. I looked at LED and Fluorescent tubes before buying. They both have to be very close to the plant (doable for seedlings, harder for "plants"). Florescent needs lots of tubes, and the fittings and "ballast" starters contribute to the initial capital outlay (tubes themselves are cheap)

LEDs use a tiny amount of electricity. Tubes a bit more. Metal Halide a lot more. (Mine is 400W - but ... it is in my office, comes on at 5PM and goes off at 7AM, so if I am in the office then I don't need light! and the 400W generates some heat, which is fine as I only used it in the Winter and thus there is some payback against a modest reduction in central heating).

The key is the amount of light you get.

The eBay lamp is 90 LED and 4.5 watts (it doesn't say how many lumens)

I found an LED lamp for growing with 168 LEDs and 5 watts - hopefully "comparable" - and that is 300 lumens.

My 400W Metal Halide is between 30,000 and 50,000 lumens (depending where on the internet you look)

I bought it because they suggested growing Canna from seed on Gardeners World in October - so they would flower in their first year, but they did say you needed a grow light. So that's why I bought mine

My Cannas flowered in mid December , and are now 6' tall and a bit of a nightmare to look after in the house with the one grow light! But enough light is penetrating the canopy that the tillers at the bottom are sprouting and growing. They have set seed, and I think they might well be ripe in time for a Spring sowing !

Not quite what I expected, but not a bad result either ...

So my advice would be to get something a bit more beefy than an LED bulb.

Also, if you only want it for growing seedlings get a blue-only bulb - the red light will be wasted if the plants are not being grown to flower

Here's a chart of Lumens and distance-from-bulb-to-plant

Light Distance Chart's

Costs were approx:

Lamp and Bulb £68
Contactor £21
Timer £10 (can drive up to two lamps)
(Bulb is recommended to be replaced once a year, cost £20)

and some Canna Terra Vega plant food, which I think is probably the key to my success! another £8

Not the "cheap" option I'm afraid.

Never bought from them before, but I got this lot from:
3 Counties Hydroponics
Hydroponics online shop supplying hydroponic equipment
and they were very efficient.