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New to growing your own tomatoes? This is the forum to learn the successful techniques used by seasoned tomato growers. Questions are welcome, too.

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Old March 25, 2018   #16
slugworth
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Walmart has the 4foot 6500k t8 bulbs $7.88 for a 2 pack.
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Old March 26, 2018   #17
cjp1953
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slugworth View Post
Walmart has the 4foot 6500k t8 bulbs $7.88 for a 2 pack.
Sounds like the daylight bulbs I bought only it was at Lowes.I use to have a few planted aquariums that had low light plants in them.Plants did great and I replace the bulbs every 6 months because the bulbs lose their light spectrum.You can't see it and the fish don't mind but other signs appear.I tried to use these older bulbs light bulbs I had laying around when I started growing my tomato and pepper plants.The plants suffered until I used new bulbs.Now I have the older ones over my drill press and band saw.
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Old March 26, 2018   #18
slugworth
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Last year I used a mix of 5000k and 6500k t8 with good results.
The trays don't have to be close to the lights.
I just switched to 6500k both bulbs in the fixture to see how that works.
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Old March 26, 2018   #19
bower
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I'm glad I didn't trash my old T8 fixtures after comparing with shoplight 4000K LEDs. LEDs have been great for greens without any input of natural light, but they are a problem for tomato seedlings. The narrowband spectrum of LED is harder for them to use, afaict, and the problem of tomato edema under LED's is well documented as I linked up in another recent thread. OTOH my repaired T8 fixtures with new 6500 K bulbs are definitely doing the job. I have tried 4000 and 5000K to compare but I always liked the 6500 K better, all my plants have responded better than other color temps.
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Old March 26, 2018   #20
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Hello All -

I actually have my new seedlings under LED lamps setup....prior, I was using traditional CFL grow lamps. My LED lamps are insanely bright - has 3 dimmer adjustability for seedling mode, veg mode, and lastly bloom mode. Aside from Intensity, I still need to play with the settings, but I believe is the seedling mode puts out more white/blue and when I turn the veg mode, it turns on my Red Leds These new lamps also have COB leds.

NO clue what these do but I wanted to try something different this year with the new lights just to see what effect it would have...

Too early to tell.

I will say this. The annual Vinca's I've started is loved these LEDS at full blast. I have about 90 plugs going in right now and they are leafing out like gangbusters
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Old March 26, 2018   #21
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Okay guys hearing about your 4ft. grow lights is kinda hijacking my thread if you read my original post I was asking for recommendations on what LED light bulb would work for my 18 gallon tote I converted to a small grow box. I'm happy to say I did find an LED 100watt equivalent bulb that offers 6,500 lumens and 5,000 kelvin. I think based on what I've read this should serve my needs. So if you want to comment on wht I found or if you have a better choice on what will work for my small grow box set up... Great!!

But please I didn't ask or want to hear about 4ft. florescent or LED grow lights, there nice but they'll never work for my small set up... Thanks for understanding.
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Old March 26, 2018   #22
slugworth
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clf 6500k
I put them in clamp light fixtures.
https://www.feit.com/products/bulbs/...istsesl40tn-d/
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Old March 26, 2018   #23
Jetstar
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Slugworth Thanks for your recommendation, I'm using 100watt equivalent CFL bulb with 1,600 lumens & 6,500 kelvin. Your bulb has a lot more lumens "2800" does that make a big difference or is what I'm using gonna be ok?
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Old March 27, 2018   #24
Captain & El P
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Worth1 View Post
Been a common misconception that foil is the way to go.
When flat white is the choice of people in the know.

You have to be really careful with what you buy because of so much misinformation and sales gimmicks that just dont hold water.
I cant think of any logical reason a person would want to use anything other than 6500K for lights.
The whole red spectrum thing is hog wash because the 6500K bright daylight mimics the light from the noon day sun.
It has every color spectrum you need and many you dont need.
I have had plants start to bloom under it with no problems what so ever.

This is yet more stuff the plant grow suppliers will sell you to get you to spend more money.

Light sensitive plants dont start blooming because of light color change they bloom due to the amount of light they get.
as in total hours.
Or to be more exact the amount of uninterrupted darkness.

This is why most people never see a jade plant bloom.
Someone turns on a light at night and resets the timer of darkness.
The same for poinsettias too.
It just so happens this takes place in the fall with more red light due to the sun being lower in the horizon filtering out more of the light in the atmosphere.


Now we can move on to reflector shape.
Look up focal point and it will lead you in the right direction.
Like in an amphitheater and its sweet spot.

Using this it will allow you to concentrate that light in any given spot by not wasting it by having energy bouncing in all directions an a square box.

This is why I suggested to remove the reflector it is shading the light from reaching all of the plants in the small box.

Worth
Another issue with the foil is it can cause "hot spots" on your plant. This is because it is almost impossible to get foil flat without creases. Flat white is better because of ease and cleaning. You can wipe your walls down with a wet rag. And if the paint gets dirty...throw on another coat!
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Old March 27, 2018   #25
slugworth
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Slugworth Thanks for your recommendation, I'm using 100watt equivalent CFL bulb with 1,600 lumens & 6,500 kelvin. Your bulb has a lot more lumens "2800" does that make a big difference or is what I'm using gonna be ok?
I am using the same thing you are using because I got a good deal on a six pack The 2800 is just the 150w equivalent.Stick with the 100 w
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Old March 27, 2018   #26
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Slugworth thanks for the straight answer !!
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Old April 13, 2018   #27
nbardo
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Default Grow light questions

Most white LED lights work similarly to fluorescent lights in how they produce white light. If you look at the LED when the light is off, if it looks like a yellow plastic material it works like fluorescent. Meaning the LED itself is producing light in the blue or ultraviolet spectrum. Then they put a phosphor coating on them (the yellow plastic bit in LED or the white powder inside a fluoro tube) that gets excited by the blue/UV light and emits a different color of light that we can see. Different phosphors used will give off different wavelengths of light, so a mixture is formulated to give out a mix of wavelengths that average out to the 2700k, 5000k, etc colors that are marked on the packaging. White LED tend to have a more continuous spectrum of light than Fluorescent, which has more concentrated spikes at certain wavelengths.

Of course there are other white LED like philips hue that combine red/green/blue leds to give off light that looks white, and these will just have spikes at red/green/blue instead of the continuous spectrum.

Then there are the grow light leds that are a combo of blue/red diodes that obviously are concentrated on those very specific points in the spectrum.

So my takeaway after reading a lot about this is that fluorescent lighting produces light that is somewhere in between the discrete spikes of the blue/red led arrays and the more continuous white LEDs. All three work well for growing seedlings, so no need to worry too much about which type to go with. If incandescent bulbs didnt put off so much heat relative to the amount if light they give off they would probably work fine too.

Just one more thing, white LED can “burn” your plants if you use too much power too close to the plants. They can pack a lot of power into a very small concentrated space, so be aware of that if you are using them. You may not want them directly on top of your plants like a fluorescent tube if they are strong lights.

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Last edited by nbardo; April 13, 2018 at 12:47 PM.
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Old April 13, 2018   #28
Jetstar
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Nabardo My brother lives in 2 miles from Warsaw 1/2 block from the Osage. Enjoyed the read about LED's, what I'm using now is a 100watt equivalent Sylvania LED 6,500 kelvin 1,600 lumen my plants seem to like it. The light is 4-1/2" from the seedlings, I've been using this light for just over a week. I was using a CFL with the same kelvin & lumen as the LED, some have said the growth I've seen in the last week was because I re-potted the plants 2 weeks ago. Maybe so but I thought it was the LED that caused the growth spurt, no matter just glad their growing well, is 4-1/2" okay distance wise? Just don't want to screw things up.
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Old April 13, 2018   #29
nbardo
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Its probably fine. If you notice any of the leaves turning white on top you know its too close. This happened to me this year with a couple seedlings. I ran out of room under my shop lights so i set up this tripod led work light i use to light up the yard at night sometimes. I set it about a foot away and after 2 or 3 days one of my potato leaf plants started showing signs of scorching. So i moved it to about 3 feet and all is well. But this thing puts out a lot of light... cant remember off hand but i think its something like 3000 lumens and there isnt a diffuser to soften it at all.


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Old April 13, 2018   #30
Jetstar
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Thanks!!
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