Two (weird) newbie questions concerning lighting.

[quietmorning]

Originally Posted by mayres

First thing is what kind of orchids are you trying to grow under lights?

For this specific area, I wanted an mini phal for the shelf that will be placed between the windows.

Originally Posted by mayres

Low light orchids like phals & paphs can be grown generally under cheapie shop fluorescent type lights. You can dress them up by placing them inside enclosures if desired. Generally most of us that use lights indoors for orchids just set them on a time and run them 12-16 hours per day.
Generally speaking the bathroom light fixture that you have noted is not going to work well for any orchids - not enough light.
If you only have a couple orchids you could potentially use the highest watt CFL (curly fluo. bulbs sold to replace incandescent bulbs) in a fixture and place your plants VERY CLOSE to the bulb. Ideally the bulb should be in a fixture like a clamp lamp/reflector - so you could direct the majority of the output at the plant, otherwise most of the output will be directed in directions not useful for your plant(s).

Yeah, I see what you're saying. there will be a mirror inbetween the light fixture and the shelf I had wanted to place the orchid on. . .so there's no way that particular light would be sufficient. . .must make a different plan, I guess.

Originally Posted by mayres

Higher light need plants are going to need more expensive supplemental fixtures/tubes - like T5 fluorescents or metal halide/sodium vapor - which also create a bit of heat that is another issue to deal with.
In terms of mimicing the natural daylight/night cycle remember the majority of these plants come from tropical areas where the length of daylight doesn't change all that much over the course of the year. Some of the will experience some seasonality in rainfall or lack thereof and to some degree a temp. change associated with that.
Bottom line - in general, you will need to specifically purchase/direct the output of light towards your plants - don't count on them being able to get enough from normal output used during typical day to day living of household fixtures.

This makes so much sense! Thank you!