Show us your most cost-effective Grow Light solutions!

For the non-professionals and dilettantes among us, what's your favorite lost-cost, easy to put up and easy to store, best-working grow light setup? Have you ever put together installations that looked like something off MythBusters that either worked great or was a total disaster (I remember one setup in my basement about 20 years ago that involved a 2' bulb and a lot of tin foil... nothing grew, probably because I forgot it was down there and never watered it)? Do you track energy bills for your growing?

I've also been curious about the energy side of my grow lights. My electric bill is always so erratic that I can't really tell. I'll be following this thread to see what everybody else has to say.

La

I have five plantstands downstairs to me it seems that the plant lights 'full spectrum' seem to be cheaper than the shop lights I bought two whole boxes of those shop lights and wish I hadn't last year I really saw the bill go up when I used those last year I may be confused on this but I think this is the way it went lol Sometimes I suffer from CRS lol I've been trying to get more plant bulbs but wal mart doesn't keep them in stock all of the time when they run out it's like 3 wks. before they get more in! I buy them off and on thru the year for the winter. I know I like the results from the plant bulbs better. A lot of people say that the shop lights are just as good but not in my book.

I have 16 shelves with two of these to run yet when I get my vines and the rest of my tomatoes transplanted. My electric runs $98 with 5 people in the house I don't think that is bad. I've traded out most of the shop lights for the plant lights. I leave two shelves on at night for the seed trays right now. I have the pvc stands for three of them and plan to make the shelves taller this year not enough height. Last year my electric ran about the same as it is now and we had less people in the house only two of us.

LeBug, thanks for the help! So when you talk about shop lights vs. plant lights, do you mean the fixtures or just the bulbs? Because I thought you could get full-spectrum plant lights to put into just about any fluorescent fixture?

Did you make the PVC stands or buy them?

I'm talking about the bulbs I like the bulbs from the plant lights (full spectrum) better than the regular old shop light bulbs. I like the results better anyway.

I made the pvc stands from t'sflowers here's the link:

http://www.tsflowers.com/plantstand.html

Great resource -- thanks for the link!

If you make these you might want to make the shelves a little higher I added a shelf on one and am getting ready this summer to make them a tad higher I always plant my seeds too early lol I also have thin pieces of old panneling on each shelf to add support for the middle of the shelves, just incase lol

I like these -- they're cheaper, but you might not like the wire shelves. I like my plants to drip if I over water, so these are great for me. You could not probably put them up by yourself because the legs go every which way, not because they are hard to do. The suckers are heavy! NO Tools required, but a rubber mallet was needed to get the little shelf backing on (the thing that prevents you from pushing a box off the back edge). You can put the shelves at any height you want, but once they are up, you can't adjust just one, without taking the whole thing apart. This link is from Costco, but Sam's has them, as well as other places. I thought mine had 5 shelves, so I'll have to check and see if this is the exact same as mine, but you get the idea.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=34972&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=&s=1

The greatest thing is that shoplights normally come with a couple of S hooks and some chain anyway. You put the S hook right over the wire and adjust the chain as the plants grow. It really couldn't be easier to hang the lights from them. Shoplights are 48" and so are these shelves, but they fit just fine.

If you have the room to leave the shelves up year round, when spring is here and the plants are outside, you can remove the lights and use the shelves for your cleaned nursery pots and seed starting junk thus keeping it all in one place.

Or you can wheel them out of the way.

We also have 2 half shelves. These are the same unit, but we made them with half-legs and only 2 shelves each. (Two vertical legs get screwed together to make one long leg, but you don't have to.)

Suzy

Illoquin/Suzy: how many starter trays can you fit on each shelf? I wonder if they make a shelf that is 24" deep so you could put the trays going the other way and get more on a shelf. I think it said yours were 18" deep.

Mmock...I hear ya...that would just be perfect to go either two trays deep or be able to turn them around and insert the other way. I've been pondering that one for awhile now...

I did a search yesterday on wire shelves and sure enough you can buy wire shelves that are 24" deep. That's on my list to buy now. Someone gave me about 15 of these shop lights that are about that wide, so one on each shelf. I wondered what I was going to do with these big things !!

mmock,

"...sure enough you can buy wire shelves that are 24" deep."

I have four of these 24 x 48 x 69 four-shelf units:

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_18562_18562

I am using two of them for plant stands and one for storage in our utility room. The fourth one awaits assembly for another plant stand, which I will place in our lean-to greenhouse when I get it finished. I have timed the purchase of each shelf unit during a period of free shipping for orders of $150 or more, to avoid paying shipping costs.

I hang four 2-bulb shoplights from Home Depot over each shelf, except for the top shelf. The top shelf is just the top of the thing. I adjust the bottom shelf all the way to the bottom, unlike in their picture. I space the three working shelves approximately equally, and that allows my seedlings to grow quite tall before I set them out.

As you know, the 24-inch shelves give you more room for standard 22 x 11 growing trays. The big 5-inch casters make these shelves easy to move around.

MM

I like those !! The price is right too. Thanks for the link.

My "Gorilla Shelf" units from Sam's are only 18 inches deep, but I use pretty sturdy trays (recently switched to the light green perma-nest trays that hold up longer, got mine pretty reasonably in quantity from Park Seeds), and I just let the trays hang off the front and back edge a couple of inches. Setting the shelf up in a double side-by-side configuraton rather than a single tall unit gives me 4 shelves at convenient heights for plants plus 2 shelves on the bottom that I use more for storage of pots and fertilizer etc. I have lights hanging from the ceiling for the top shelf, giving me plenty of room for taller plants as they grow, and I put quarter inch dowels through the keyhole openings on the brackets to support lights for the lower shelves.

Here's a photo...

Does anyone here use the T5 bulbs? I wonder if they are much better than T8/T12. I know they are supposed to run cooler, and have more brilliance/lumens per watt but is it worth getting them over the shop lights?

I'd like to use one of those 48"x18" metal racks (like described and linked above) for keeping my hoyas alive through the winter here in NC. It seems a lot of you are using 4 x 48" standard fluorescents over each 48"x18" shelf. I wonder if 2 x 54 watt T5's (48" bulbs) over each shelf would be sufficient to keep the hoyas alive and possibly growing for nearly 6 months every year? I'd use cooler colored bulbs for leafy growth vs. warm bulbs for flowering.

I also bought "Gorilla shelves" but mine were from Costco and more decorative. I think they have 5 adjustable shelves (they are heavy duty) and last year it cost $99.00. I have two now.

Each shelf is equipped with 2 shoplights for a total of 4 bulbs per shelf. I did not pay attention to the electric bill though. I was having too much fun with my plants. I started tons of plants and over wintered lantana, vinca and a few others. Thankfully the shelves adjusted to fit.

I used leftover puzzle blocks from the kids old toys. They are those foam numbers and letters that attach together. I have alot and used them to change individual height on the plants that needed a little more or less.

Very colorful--very strange looking, but heck, it worked! I had a jungle by planting season.

I actually moved the shelves in the above photo to general storage use and replaced them with new Gorilla shelves this spring because the new ones have laminated shelves that I liked better (waterproof and as you said a bit more decorative). But the arrangement of lights resting on the dowels works the same....

I'll have to check to see what I paid for them this winter/spring.... and I guess I need a new photo!

Anyone have suggestions of where I can buy the plant lights from in December? New at this idea. I need heat and light. Need suggestions of where to go and what to do in a small limited space. Thanks.

r30

For starting tomatoes and peppers, I use 72 cell and 54 cell starter trays atop heat mats @ 80 - 85*F for the peppers and anywhere I can achieve 70 - 75*F for the tomatoes.

When the very first seedlings emerge and before the white shoots even get the least bit out of the starter medium, I move the starter trays to shallow, opaque plastic tote tubs that are about 6 inches deep, set on the garage floor in rows, and lay 4-foot long shop light fixtures strattling the tubs. I use one warm and one cool tube per fixture.

I have never bought a timer, so I simply toggle the lights off sometime before I go to sleep and toggle them back on in the morning for about 16 hours of light per 24 hour cycle. I use the power strips with toggle switches to connect all the light fixtures.

When the tomato seedlings get up to where they're touching the light fixtures, I pot them up to 3.5 or 4.0 inch square nursery bedding plant pots and put them into deep, opaque tote tubs that are like 11 or 12 inches deep, and again simply lay the shop light fixtures across the lines of tubs.

The reason I keep them on the concrete garage floor is to retard the plants through late March and halfway through April as the garage stays about 50 - 60*F during this time. By midway through April, I can rotate the plants outdoors to harden off during the day while I'm at work and back into the garage for more light until around midnight.

This has worked very well for me (except for domestic complaints regarding car care, etc.) for the past three years and I've started between 200 - 400 tomato plants and a few dozen pepper plants this way each of those 3 season. The only other way I would consider starting tomato seedlings would be to go back to outdoor cold frames made from straw bales and salvaged window frames or possibly rigging a temporary miniture hoop house in a raised bed. Anything else is just too much hardware and unnecessary tech.

pr

I really like the idea of using the dowels to adjust the lights, critterologist.

I have one setup with wire shelves, two shoplights per shelf, and adjust the chain length of the lights. I will be needing to get at least another set of shelves before spring. I also have a jerry-rigged "shelf" with the plants on to of a chest freezer I'm not suing and the lights hanging from the sewer pipe by ropes. It is actually easier to adjust the ropes than it is the chains. I haven't paid enough attention to notice the difference in electrical usage.

Here's my light I recently bought:

Its the yellow one on the shower rod! lol Is this enought lighting????

r30

Here all 3 types of lighting I have on, Fluorescent shop light, the green desk lamp for a little bit of heat (75 watts), and the way above light over the sink.

Will I stil need a heat mat?????????????????

r30

This message was edited Dec 23, 2007 9:39 PM

R30,

"Will I still need a heat mat?"

A thermometer can answer that best for you. I use an oven thermometer that I "borrowed" from my wife. It has a handy probe that you can stick almost anywhere. I stick it in the growing medium to see what the root zone temperature is. I also use it to monitor the air temperature above my seedlings and cuttings under a humidity dome. I drilled a small hole in a humidity dome to permit the insertion of the thermometer.

Recently I was rooting some hybrid zinnia cuttings under overdriven fluorescents and the thermometer measured 96°F in the air around the cuttings under the humidity dome. That was excessive, so I switched to normally driven fluorescent fixtures. The temperature dropped into the 80's, which was better. A thermometer is a useful thing for indoor growing. Next I need to get a pH meter.

MM

MaineMan,

Don't get one that is battery free.
You are better off buying batteries for a pH meter that works.

Germinater,

Thanks for the advice. It makes sense. I appreciate it and will heed it, because I definitely need a reliable pH meter.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

MM

When I started my seeds, I bottom heated with Christmas lights under 2 blocks of wood. It worked really well!

I'm glad to know that worked for you! I included that method as one of the alternatives in my article on heat mats: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/556/

I've also put together what I've learned about setting up lights for seed starting, some of which is the same info I posted on this thread but maybe a little better organized, LOL: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/464/

Hate to say it but I converted to WSing seeds instead. I gave up on the shop lights.

rebecca30

I do both! :-)

I have to be the only person in the world who completely failed at winterseeding. It was a disaster.

Thanks to the folks in this thread, though, my indoor seed starting went really well last year. This year, I had the stuff and so got started in a much more timely fashion. My stocks and Sweet William popped out of their little seeds yesterday -- I'm so excited!

Thanks again everybody!