Flourescent Lights: Are some better than others?

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emorss Lenox, MA(Zone 6a) Feb 13, 2011

Gardeners Supply claims they have brighter fluorescent lights than others.

Is this true?

And do f. lights dim after a few years?

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pennefeather McLean, VA(Zone 6b) Feb 26, 2011

If you are planning to start your seeds inside, pass on Gardeners Supply's lights. For the last four years, I have used inexpensive shop lights from Home Depot with wonderful results. I put one warm, and one cool light in each fixture. I think that the fixtures themselves were about $12 or $15 each. I have two fixtures on each shelve with a total of four shelves. I have two seperate units, and each one is on a timer. The entire set up is maybe $100. There are eight shop lights, a metal shelving set, plus the lights.

The completed setup looks good when it is presented by any of the catalogue companies, but this is an easy project that you can put together youself for much less money than they are selling their brand for.

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Doug9345 Durhamville, NY(Zone 5b) Feb 28, 2011

We've had a fairly extensive conversation about this here
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1160330/

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emorss Lenox, MA(Zone 6a) Mar 01, 2011

Pennefeather and Doug:

Thanks for the info.

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jimtomczak Mobile, AL(Zone 8b) Mar 11, 2011

Hi, Early this year I started seed for the first time using Fluorescents. I have two double shop fixtures 4' with one warm and one cool bulb in each.The bulbs for these types of fixtures are being slowly phased out (T12) Cool and warm et all. I went ahead and purchased an T5HO 4' 8 bulb set up. and 2 single 4' 5HO fixtures. There was no diff in germination. The plant development is like night and day with the T5HO 4 6500k (blue and white spectrum) 4 3000K (orange and red spectrum) mix Winning hands down. Just don't think they can be kept less than 20" above your plants as the heat produced will cook them to a crisp.I started Basil, Cilantro,Gazania, Tri-color Chrysanthemum, Caraway,Culantro,Mimulus & Sweet William Jan 18th and started to harden them off 5 days ago.The shop lights did great too but The new smaller stronger lights win. But the cost is like night and day also. I guess LED's will blow them all out of the water in the next couple of years.I just don't think they have all the bugs out yet. So The Shop lights are good The T5HO Better But the money Makes the T12 lamps a better deal.JIMT

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