Indoor Grow Lights?

I have recently moved to a new home and no longer have a nice bay window for my seedlings. I have a nice closet in the basement though. I want to buy some fluorescent fixtures to start my seeds. But do not want to spend a ton of money. Does anybody know what will work that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars? I live in Minnesota so I have a couple of weeks before I start them. Everything is still frozen solid here still. If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

Shop lights, regular tubes.

It works. Doesn't have to be any special light spectrum or any of that.

(Lights shown here were moved up only for the picture. You want them closer.)

Second ds regular old shoplights. I have noticed that the seedlings lean towards the "cool" bulbs. I use whatever is cheapest.

Thank you for the response. How many lights do you use? 2 - 4 bulbs?

The seedlings should be directly under the bulbs, not off to the side. So you would use however many bulbs it takes to accomplish that. You can choose from different ballasts, some that fit one bulb, some that fit two. I use the four-foot shop lights (got a great deal on them at Menards) that fit two bulbs and come with a cord to plug in and chains to hang them. The chains are important because you will need to adjust the height of the lights as the seedlings grow. The setup isn't elegant, but it's cheap and easy.

I'm using wire shelving, also bought from the hardware store. I can hang two shop lights from the shelf above it and fit 4 flats of seedling trays underneath. And then I do another shelf, as well. So that's two ballasts on each shelf, with a total of four fluorescent tubes over each shelf. But do whatever works for you in the space you have.

I noticed that you said you're doing this in a closet. Be sure that you keep the door open, if there is one, and run a small fan for air circulation. Also, the breeze can help the seedlings develop stronger stems.

I do alot of seedlings so I usually use the 4 bulb types but I set the lights on jars and raise them as the seedlings grow. Not the normal way but I have really high ceilings so this is just easier, if a little "red neck". Sometimes the 4 bulbs in, the same fixture, are different. ie full spectrum, cool, or whatever but the seedlings bend to the cool spectrum one.
Lisa

I also have higher ceilings but I do have alot of wire shelving as well. Thank you for the advise with the fan, I currently only have a shop fan, so I think will have to get one with a little less power. The good thing is that I have quite a bit of time to get this set up. The last frost here will be around the first week of May. Not really safe to plant anything until at least into the second week. How long do you give them light? 12 -16 hrs? When I had the bay window they just got the sunlight and only about 8-10 hrs. I want to thank you both again for the advise.

I think I ran them for 16 hours last year. Probably wouldn't hurt them if you needed to do a little less than that.

Except for spinach. Did you know that spinach bolts at 16 hours of light, even if it's a seedling? ha ha! As much as I read and try to get everything just right, I still make some goooofy mistakes. :o)

Excited for ya. Let us know how it goes.

That's strange about the spinach. Weird fact that I will probably never need but very interesting. Now I'll probably have to try it just to see.

II buy da 4ft x 2ft utility shelves from Home Depot. Dey aint cheap but aint too bad. Weld the two havles together, paint, den put in basement. Put two steel rods tru da holes in the legs, den prop 4 of da 4ft 2-bulb lights on da steel rods. Use shop lights. I buy mine off craigslist cheap. Dey just fit. Prop up seeds so as close as possible to lights, no more dan 2 inches, try for less. Can plant 4 trays per shelf easy, and got dunno 5 shelves or so.

A few plants don't like da shop lights. Depend on da species. Add a few grow or daylight bulbs to help them. Most don't mind as long as very close to da light. Sometime I do 24 hours, sometime I do 12 or 16 hour, I poor so me and da kids sleeping in da basement too and da lights bug me at night so depend on my mood and da species. Der is a research paper out der somewhere on what plants dun mind 24 hours of light. Some do ok as babies but start to grow up, need better light, so timing wif nature take practice.

Problem wif dis setup is drying out da new babies, at least in my climate, must water about twice a day at first, den once a day later. I keep covered until sprout. Rh is around 15% indoors here. Sometime less. Keep move up da steel rods as da babies grow. And move babies outside whenever da sun is smiling. I also add a little peroxide in da water and when dey grow, real light Fox farms grow big fertilizer, about 1/8 strength every few waters. Da right amount of fertilizer make a big deal to da babies.

I have low humidity here, too, in the winter, and I run a small humidifier in the room with my seedlings. Good point.

I was unaware of the spinach bolt, good to know though. I was planning on starting a small indoor greens patch, for salads and things. I have a humidifier I will put that in the closet, I'll have to put it in the back because I have a large basement, with the door open and the fan running it is gonna suck the moisture right out of the closet. Theres not really any moisture in the air here right now. Although it has been getting warmer which will help. Its really nice out today, we should get up to 25 degrees! won't even need a coat today...

Hi Belston23...

You must be native to MN to NOT need a coat in 25*. :-)

We lived in MN for a year or so...on Christmas Lake by Lake Minnetonka -- back in '86-'87....it was your third mildest winter ever. Folks were still driving their cars onto the lakes even though the news folks were telling everyone NOT to...that the ice wasn't thick enough that year. What mess to get those cars out of the lake!

Sure is pretty up your way....but waaaaay too cold for my bones.

Jann

How often do you guys change the light tubes? Can you use them until they burn out, or do they gradually get weak?

I use mine until the burn out. I don't think they get weak, maybe if their blinking.

dividedsky - the tubes do get weaker as they age. You will notice the ends get darker. The brightest light comes from the middle of the tube. I use mine until they burn out, but only because I'm cheap! If you keep what you are growing under the middle of the tubes, the seedlings will be okay. I keep the lights on for 16 hours a day (I don't grow spinach)

Now if you want to grow full-sized plants - ignore this advise, 'cause the only plant I know that loves to live under tubes year round are African Violets - I used to grow lots of them.

Hmmm. The ends don't look dark. But some of the seedlings had started reaching their leaves for the light. Everything's outside now, except the herbs and lettuce I just started. They will stay inside.

I'm cheap too, and I guess I'd have to figure out how to freecycle these 8 bulbs if I do switch them out. Sounds kind of funny to give away used bulbs, but somebody might need them.

dividedsky - Yes, tha'ts the problem with starting seeds indoors, the leaves will reach for the light. I check the seed packages, and count back from the date I expect to set transplants outside in the spring, then sow accordingly.

This is also why I start fall seeds outside so they can get direct sunlight. When I lived in Florida this was not a problem 'cause most things grew in the winter months, so I could start seeds on a table in small pots. The only things I had to be concerned with was high winds and torrential rain showers!

You sound like me, I hate to throw anything away that might be useful, and if I saved every tube that was almost "done" I'd have a garage full - so I just let them burn out. I write the date on the end when I put in a new tube - not a useful thing to do, but at least I know whether or not I got my monies worth! LOL

One way to tell if your tube is getting weak is to put a new one next to it. The seedlings will lean towards the newer (brighter) one. My shoplights take two tubes each. I have two shoplights (4-tubes) per shelf. Sometimes the only way I know the lights have died is when the seedlings start to stretch towards the neighboring shoplight.

Our house has old wiring, when we use the microwave, the fluorescent tubes flicker!

Ah, good idea. I'm going to try that.

I use 1 cool tube and 1 warm tube in my 2-tube shop light. Read somewhere the combination provides full spectrum light. May be true since the plants grow straight up. The only leaning I get is when I attach aluminum foil along the edges to fit in more plants. When they start leaning, I just turn them the other way. Also, being low tech, I prop the edges of the light on bricks and add another brick when I need to raise the light. It's a crude arrangement but works. :)

You can use regular shop lights to grow plants sure but with the new compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL's) you get WAY more lumes/watt (light for the dollar spent to run the bulb) and the spectrum of light is way better than any combination of the cheap tubes (cool/warm/bright...) even if you only get the cheap curly CFL's available everywhere now.

If you're a DIYer I've seen pretty well designed reflectors for curly CFL's made out of beer cans. I was thinking of trying that one myself and using a new reflector design I saw that uses a V shape over the bulb (bulb is held horizontal to the plants not vertical) to one, stop reflecting light back into the bulb itself and two, disperse the light a bit more evenly preventing hot spots under the bulb that traditional "half can" reflector shapes may create.

Use the mouth of the can to "hold on" to the built in ballast on the CFL and open the can up into the reflector shape you want. Some people used reflective film like mylar (even tin foil) but I think I would just use a good reflective heat resistant white spray paint.

You can use any cheap lamp setup you want with curly CFL's cheap now and if you want they also make a grow bulb version with a different shape and tube versions too but you don't need anything more than the regular curly lights as I like to call them. I've changed the bulbs in my house over to these and have yet to see a package that does not list its "color" in degrees Kelvin. (6500k or 6500 Kelvin)

For a "one bulb the whole way" setup you want "daylight" or "full spectrum" CFL's they will be rated 5000k to 6500k (preferably 6500). 6500k is pretty much the same spectrum as the sun. You want the highest lumen output for each bulb so if you have choices pick the one with the higher lumens for the same color and wattage bulb.

Some people use 6500k bulbs during veg growth stage and then switch to a bulb with more red light for flowering/fruiting like a 2700k bulb.

If you look up the life of regular fluorescent bulbs they lose 50% of their output very fast and they keep degrading from there. I'm not sure how fast the CFL light output degrades but I know the bulbs are supposed to last a lot longer than regular bulbs.

One other nice feature about using curly bulbs is it's a lot easier to direct light exactly where you think it's needed. You could place a bulb UNDER the plants if you really wanted.

All I know is two 23 or 27 watt curly CFL's are more than ample lumens to cover a square foot of garden.

This message was edited Jun 17, 2010 5:53 PM

Forgot to mention you could use a bulb like a 2700k the whole way if thats all you have but because they are lacking in the blue spectrum plants may stretch looking for blue.

This message was edited Jun 17, 2010 6:13 PM