Tell me about your lights!

[SG in CR]

I don't grow indoors, but here are my 2 cents worth.
1. I think unless you go annoyingly bright for an indoor environment you won't hurt your plants with too much light. Even fairly heavy shade under a tree on a sunny day tends to be far brighter that what we have indoors unless the sun is shining in some large windows.
2. Regarding lights made for aquarium use, I would use specifically those with a spectrum designed for use with freshwater planted tanks. Those for saltwater tend to be very heavy on the blue spectrum.

[Subrosa]

Originally Posted by SG in CR

I don't grow indoors, but here are my 2 cents worth.
1. I think unless you go annoyingly bright for an indoor environment you won't hurt your plants with too much light. Even fairly heavy shade under a tree on a sunny day tends to be far brighter that what we have indoors unless the sun is shining in some large windows.
2. Regarding lights made for aquarium use, I would use specifically those with a spectrum designed for use with freshwater planted tanks. Those for saltwater tend to be very heavy on the blue spectrum.

If you're looking at this from the standpoint of purchasing your lighting I wholeheartedly disagree. If you're buying lights, buy purpose designed grow lights. The only reason I use aquarium lighting is because I had easy access to it practically free when I ran an aquarium maintenance company. I would only recommend it if you already have it or can get it CHEAP. And quite frankly, artificial lighting is just a stop gap for me until I can get my plants back outside. My intention was to keep my plants healthy over the winter, and I would have been quite satisfied with that. As shown in the thread I linked to in my previous post, the Taotronics panels are certainly heavily biased towards the blue end of the spectrum. Red is definitely more important than blue in terms of flowering, but as long as there's sufficient intensity of good light at the red end of the spectrum, plants will flower. The excess blue does not detract from the red it hides from our eyes. And plants that I leave out in full sun, all day long all summer long flower under them in the dead of winter. I'm not sure what else I could reasonably ask of a light.

[SG in CR]

Originally Posted by Subrosa

If you're looking at this from the standpoint of purchasing your lighting I wholeheartedly disagree. If you're buying lights, buy purpose designed grow lights. The only reason I use aquarium lighting is because I had easy access to it practically free when I ran an aquarium maintenance company. I would only recommend it if you already have it or can get it CHEAP. And quite frankly, artificial lighting is just a stop gap for me until I can get my plants back outside. My intention was to keep my plants healthy over the winter, and I would have been quite satisfied with that. As shown in the thread I linked to in my previous post, the Taotronics panels are certainly heavily biased towards the blue end of the spectrum. Red is definitely more important than blue in terms of flowering, but as long as there's sufficient intensity of good light at the red end of the spectrum, plants will flower. The excess blue does not detract from the red it hides from our eyes. And plants that I leave out in full sun, all day long all summer long flower under them in the dead of winter. I'm not sure what else I could reasonably ask of a light.

Not exactly sure which part of what I wrote your disagreeing with. But I was just saying that if the OP wanted to use aquarium lighting, the lights designed for freshwater planted tanks will have a more pleasing light than those aimed at saltwater reef tanks, at least in my subjective opinion.

[Subrosa]

Originally Posted by SG in CR

Not exactly sure which part of what I wrote your disagreeing with. But I was just saying that if the OP wanted to use aquarium lighting, the lights designed for freshwater planted tanks will have a more pleasing light than those aimed at saltwater reef tanks, at least in my subjective opinion.

Aquarium lights are something you should use only because you have them, and naturally you only have what you have, so it's what you use.

[reptilegrrl]

Camille, thanks for your comment. If you don't think Ray's comment about my "attitude" was rude, then I guess OB is not for me. I am anti-bullying and I can't support an organization that supports bullies.

I understand that Ray is a respected member of this community, and I have learned a lot from him myself. I appreciate his willingness to share his knowledge and experience. I don't think that should give him a license to bully. I think my original response to him was very polite, he is the one who resorted to insults about my "attitude" (and his weird thing about the question I did not ask) but he's not getting a reprimand here.

To the rest of you who offered helpful and kind advice, thank you very much. I wish you all the best and happy orchid growing!

---------- Post added at 04:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:35 PM ----------

Also WRT to Ray's beliefs about displaying the flag: it is a mistake to believe that a USA flag on my profile will tell you anything about my cultural mores, or that those would affect my ability to converse about orchids in English. Kindness and honesty, though, are universal. Chahta sia. Itlna chuknia!

[Dollythehun]

I wish you healthy roots and abundant blooms; good growing.

[Ray]

In case reptilegrrl peruses this forum again, maybe she should learn a little lesson about being polite before accusingly others of being rude.

While I firmly believe all I have posted in this thread, if my initial response wasn't what she was really looking for, a "Thank you, but I just wanted to see others' setups" would have set the tone better.

[naoki]

I agree with Ray. I didn't see that Ray's original post was rude or off-topic. It appears ReptileGirl is confused the difference between photon flux (lumen, micromol/s) and photon flux per unit area (i.e. density, fc, lux, micromol/m^2/s). Also different orchids requires different amount of light. So you don't learn anything by comparing the condition for Masdevallia to Cattleya. That's what Ray was pointing out.

Plants can grow with most artificial light, even with monochromatic LEDs with a narrow wavelength width or incandescent light. Their efficiencies are highly variable, and I don't think that many people choose them in the way to save money (and energy).

If you don't care about money (or environment), you can target around 100 micromol/m^2/s for lower light orchids or 200-300 micomol/m^2/s for higher light orchids with whatever light fixture. But orchids grow ok with lower amount of light.

If you know only foot-candle or lux, you can approximately get the PPFD by finding a conversion factor.