Lighting an orchid closet - fluorescent or LED? Otherwise?
 

:hello First post! Eek! So I'm moving into an apartment (tomorrow) and looking at ways to set up my double-deep closet with these pesky orchids and succulents.

I'm working out placement and care of each of my plants, and what kind of lighting I'll need. They are as follows:

2 Neostylis Bluebird, 1 mounted on tree fern, 1 potted
Angraecum didieri, also on tree fern
Bulbophyllum tingabarinum, mounted on cork w/sphagnum
Gongora galeata, hanging basket
Oncidium, grocery-store hybrid, potted
Dendrobium wassellii, mounted with Angraecum
Dendrobium (lanky, thick growth habit), grocery-store hybrid, potted
Paphiopedilum, no ID, in terrarium with pets
Howeara Lava Burst, same terrarium
And a few Phals that I started with, mostly potted.

That's plus maybe 8 mature bonsai-in-training, maybe 30 small (growing) cacti/succulents, and a few other various plants that are in my room.

My question is this: will 2 clamp lamps suffice, if one is set up at a lower height with a 1350-lumen fluorescent compact at 3500k, and the other is higher-up, with a 2000-lumen fc at 5000k? Should I return the fluorescents and invest in LEDs? I'm trying to keep the bill down, since it's a shared apartment. Otherwise I'd try putting one sodium at the very top. Not up for that kind of money or heat, though. Am I on the right track? Help!

Straight bulbs with good reflectors or LEDs are superior to CFLs. The spiral design wastes a lot of the light energy to the inside.

Some of the plants will need a lot more light than will others, so you're going to need to do some "staging" in terms of distance from the lights.

As you're growing in a shared apartment - with shared utilities, I assume - I would look more to LEDs, as you get a lot more light for the watt. I just bought a Jungle Dawn LED from Little Frog Farm, and it's amazingly bright. What's nice about those is they screw into a standard socket (so your clamp lams are fine, allowing you to position them where they are needed), and need no reflector.

I will add that if you go with fluorescents, use T5 lamps and a higher color temp than you asked about. Avoid the HPS, as it'll be too bright for most of your plants, so they'll all have to be far away (relatively speaking), it'll generate a lot of heat, and will use more electricity.

I am experimenting with the Jungle Dawn LED bulbs also!

Fishmommy, how long have you been using the Jungle Dawn LEDs and what are your thoughts on them thus far?


Judi

I'll give the LEDs a shot. I'm skeptical of them - something just doesn't seem right. I hear a lot of argument for them, but the people sternly against make an impact too.

Any tips on how to arrange the plants/lights otherwise? I would've bought straight fluorescent bulbs, but setting up the fixtures in my 3x4 closet would be more trouble than I can afford. I really appreciate the feedback, guys!

I have a kitchen top LED light set up. I grow phals and paphs under this light setup and they bloom perfectly fine.
I tried oncidiums and dendrobiums for a few months and they grew perfectly fine as well. I just didn't leave them under LED long enough to see flowers.

I have also tried tolumnias and miltonidium under halogen lamp, and all grew well and flowered well.

What's the amount of light output of these in lumens? I see they're listed as 13 watts, but I don't know how that relates to wattage of a cfl bulb. I'm kind of surprised that I can't find any detailed specs online.

Too soon to tell. I have been using them about a month - growing begonias and episcias (not risking my orchids yet) and they are blooming and doing fine so far.

The thing I have been reading about LEDs that is interesting is you need to supply some stressor like a heat source and fan for robust plant growth.
I have seen sites that recommend against pure LED setups and instead recommend hybrid setups so that some heat is generated by the traditional lights.

It's so hard to tell on most of these plant lighting sites if the advice they are giving is really targeted at the needs of pot plants or is the advice more general. I hate that.

Ray and Fishmommy, what is coverage of Jungle Dawn LED? It's probably partly depends on the reflector design, but does a single bulb provide more than 1'x1' orchid growing area (let's say low-moderate light paphs, or whatever you grow)? It's only 13W, and I'd like to know how effective it is. I'm not so happy with 90W 5-band UFO LED light. The fan is noisy. It does provide pretty strong light for the center, but the usable area seems to be at most 1.5' x 1.5' (from 2.5' above the plants).

Has anyone measured PAR of Jungle Dawn LED?

According to this post:
Lighting an Aquarium with PAR instead of Watts

Some LED like Finnex Ray II seems to be able to provide similar PAR as some T5HO, but it's not as good as the best T5HO. But if we calculate the PAR per watt, LED seems to be better.