How Many Lights?
 

Evening, all! :)

I am looking to purchase some of Ray's LEDs to grow my guys under for fall & winter, but I am not sure of how many I will need. I presently have one dendrobium, one beallara, three cattleya hybrids and five phals - 3 mounted and 2 minis in pots. I was not sure whether I could mount the LEDS up higher for the tall plants (dendro & beallara) and then have the cattleyas in front of them? Or if they all need different amounts of light/need to be father/closer to the lights.

And I wasn't sure at all where to put the phals since two of them are in pots and the other three are mounted.

I am also unsure of how to go about determining how far away/close to place the plants to the lights.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!!

Probably 3-4? Obviously more is better since your plants requires fair amount of light. But since you are using it as supplement, you can think that any addition is better than nothing. For Phals, 8-12" (covers 1.5x1.5' or less), for the others, as close as possible (around 3").

I have my shorter plants standing on upside down pots to get them closer to the light. It's not attractive, but it's functional. I've used an iPhone light meter app to measure reflected light and get a rough idea how much light my plants are getting. Ray's site has instructions for that. That said, one of my plants did not re-bloom this year and I added another light above it. It seems to be a trial and error process too. You can keep moving the plants gradually closer until you see the leaves getting too yellow.

I plan on ordering some lights for this winter also :D

But I would do what GardenTheater said and just use things to put your catts closer to the lights instead of just buying a bunch of lights and have a bunch of empty space.

My lights arrived today and I am SO EXCITED! O_O! I am going to drag my fiance to Lowes with me for fixtures and some wood for shelving. :) I will do as you guys suggested and stack them. Hopefully the ones I got and the plan I have in my head will work out! :) Thank you for your input!

That is awesome! It's fun to have orchids inside. Post pictures if you can. We will oooh and aaah at the setup. Hubby helped me too.

YAY! do post pictures :biggrin:

Update (with pics!)
 

Alrighty, let me know what you guys think!! We grabbed some bare stainable wood and so forth from Lowes. It's not the prettiest thing, but we have been trying to find something to put in that huge corner gap by our TV...so TA DA! :D Now as long as my cats don't climb from the end table up to the orchids...O___________O

I measured the recommended distances from the top of the plants leaves, was that correct? (i.e. the lights are 6-12" from the top of the leaves as opposed to the pot itself). Do these look adequate/correct distance for what is up there? L to R is a Dendrobium Phal, Beallara, 3 Cattleya hybrds, and then up front is phals (I have 4 minis, and the big cork log on the left has a full sized NoID); I actually decided to mount one of my minis on that cork log too after the fact, lol.

The heating vent is about 4 feet or so under that board, and off to the right by probably two feet (it's directly behind the end table you see in the photos). Our curtains are insulated, too, so they shouldn't get any draft from the windows (part of why we wanted to get them lights and out of the window - we have discovered our windows are particularly drafty :(().

What do you think? And -- How long do I turn the lights on during the day??

When considering lights, first start by assessing the area to be lighted, then consider the light requirements of the plants.

In your situation, I'd say two of the LED lamps would be fine if you were only growing phals or other low-growing, low-light plants. With the added situation of taller, higher-light plants as you have, I would agree with Naoki's assessment and recommend 3, or more likely, 4.

(By the way as there is a greater discount for more lamps, I'll retractively discount the two you already bought.)

Are the lights not close enough to the plants or are they not covering enough area? The board is 16"Wx36" long, but the plants are 3" in from the edges of the board on each side making their total coverage area 30" across. They are also about 3" from the front of the board, which means they are ~13" from front to back. I have the lights 6" from the Cattleyas while simultaneously being 12" from the phals (on both sides) and ~6" from the dendro and 4" from the oncid. None of the plants are casting shadows on other plants either. Are the lights just too high? I am happy to lower them, but if each light covers a 1.5'x1.5' area I am confused as to why there aren't enough for my dimensions?