Hello from orlando, Fl

[plantmattg]

Whats up everyone, just stumbled across this website. I ve been interested in aquaponics and hydroponics for a couple years now, nothing major just a couple hobby systems. I currently have a tower garden but i will be moving to an apartment at the end of the year so i will be building a nice indoor setup using some LEDs(the expensive ones ;) ) Looking forward to talking to some other people from the central florida area.

[stucco]

Welcome aboard! It’s good to see you here.

[WAbedroomponics]

do LEDs work to help plants grow? i am new to indoor systems and aquaponics altogether and have never heard about LED lights as grow lights but i am always learning new things :) welcome

[urbanfarmer]

Welcome!


do LEDs work to help plants grow? i am new to indoor systems and aquaponics altogether and have never heard about LED lights as grow lights but i am always learning new things :) welcome
They do work and eat up less power, but studies showing their effectiveness are really lacking.

I have found that inexpensive fluorescent lighting does a better job, and the total cost of ownership is still cheaper than the LEDs. The most common lights to buy for indoor growing on the cheap are:


40 to 150 Watt equivalent CFL ranging in color from 2700K to 6500K
34 or 40 Watt 4 foot T12 bulb for standard shop light assemblies ($1 a bulb and $10 for a 2-bulb shop light at HD/Lowes)


For instance, I bought 5 shop lights and 10 bulbs ($10 per shop light and $1 per bulb), and I got over 32,000 lumens @ 400 Watts for about $60 (a few bucks for some wood, screws, and chains to hang it up). This will give you strong coverage for a 8-12 square foot area. I grew duckweed, peppers, lettuce, watermelon, cucumber, Chinese okra, and basil indoors this way, and it shocked me how darn well it all grew.

This compares well even to HID/MH bulbs and assemblies costing $200-$400 for the same results.

So, unless you are made of money or just have your heart set of LEDs... get some florescent tube lights or even the compact ones. They are cheaper and grow just as good or better than the LED lights on eBay. The LED UFO light might be good in some commercial operations. For instance, raising onions that are long day type, you can use the UFO light to CHEAPLY lengthen the day length since the plant could care less about the quality of the light! Anyway, just my 2 and a half cents...

[JCO]

Welcome to the show....pull up an easy chair, relax and stay awhile. New voices are always a welcome addition to our family..! Whatever questions you have on you mind, this is the place to get the answers. :mrgreen:

[davidstcldfl]

Hi plantmattg ...welcome to the forum... :D

[plantmattg]

do LEDs work to help plants grow? i am new to indoor systems and aquaponics altogether and have never heard about LED lights as grow lights but i am always learning new things :) welcome
Yes they do, but there are a lot of different LEDs out there and a lot of misinformation. Fluorescents are nice but they arent really a high output light, they are great for herbs and leafy veggies or most plant you will grow indoors(or fruiting plants if you have enough but a good LED is comparative to HID lighting as far as intensity goes. Ive used cfl, floro tubes, hps, and LED and prefer LEDs based on my experiences. Only problem with LED is the footprint, very small, so all your light is pretty focused. But urban farmer is right they are very expensive, i have 2 126w lights which add up to about $900 :o , but they were a gift, i could never afford or justify spending that kind of money, sure ill save money in the long run but i dont think its necessary, plus i thought the glow from the hps was intense in my kitchen the LED makes it look like the red light district. :P Sorry im not much of a picture taker but ill try to get some pics up for you guys, I know i have some of the tower garden and raised beds but i dont think i have any of the indoor, never was happy enough with the look or out come. Anybody here familiar with the tower garden?

[urbanfarmer]

do LEDs work to help plants grow? i am new to indoor systems and aquaponics altogether and have never heard about LED lights as grow lights but i am always learning new things :) welcome
Yes they do, but there are a lot of different LEDs out there and a lot of misinformation. Fluorescents are nice but they arent really a high output light, they are great for herbs and leafy veggies or most plant you will grow indoors(or fruiting plants if you have enough but a good LED is comparative to HID lighting as far as intensity goes. Ive used cfl, floro tubes, hps, and LED and prefer LEDs based on my experiences. Only problem with LED is the footprint, very small, so all your light is pretty focused. But urban farmer is right they are very expensive, i have 2 126w lights which add up to about $900 :o , but they were a gift, i could never afford or justify spending that kind of money, sure ill save money in the long run but i dont think its necessary, plus i thought the glow from the hps was intense in my kitchen the LED makes it look like the red light district. :P Sorry im not much of a picture taker but ill try to get some pics up for you guys, I know i have some of the tower garden and raised beds but i dont think i have any of the indoor, never was happy enough with the look or out come. Anybody here familiar with the tower garden?
Wow, that's a lot of LED wattage. I have only played with the weaker ones, but I positioned them literally on top of the plants (they still cost $100 a piece). The thing is for the cost of electricity vs. the cost of initial equipment cost, florescents are the best bang for your buck.

Assume your 250 watts of LEDs is equal to about 560 watts of florescent.

7x shop lights @ $10 + 14x bulbs @ $1 = $84
vs.
2x 125w LED arrays @ $450 = $900

Assume a 12/12 light cycle. With a 300 watt difference, it would take:

(12 hours / day) x (0.300 kilowatt / hour) = 3.6 kWh / day @ $0.10 per kWh = $0.36 per day

THEREFORE:
$900 - $84 = $816
It would take... $816 / ($0.36 / day) = 2,267 days or just over 6 years of daily operation for the LEDs to start saving money on the fluorescent bulbs. (In reality you would have replaced the $1 bulbs about 3-6 times here, but I did round down on the years.)

So, from a practical standpoint it is cheaper to start-up with some fluorescent. It is also cheaper to replace them if something were to go wrong. Lastly, some people only use them during the winter months. In some cases to start seeds. If they were only used 3 months out of the year it would take 24 years for LEDs to be cheaper. By then, we will have some fancy laser lights or better.

My indoor hobby lasted about a year before I went outdoors with it, which is why I couldn't commit to the LEDs. I wasn't sure how long it would take, but I knew it would be cheaper to get some fluorescents. I ended up using them around the house once I dismantled everything; so, not much wasted money... at least that's what I tell the old lady! :mrgreen:

One more note as far as which is better. I did compare a 16 Watt LED array on 1 species plant vs. a 16 Watt CFL bulb on the same species of plant (Capsicum annuum). I positioned the lights 1-2 inches from the plant (adjusted daily as the plant grew). Over the entire course of the plant's growth, the CFL clearly outperformed the LED. In the course of the growth the LED plant never got large enough to produce peppers although it flowered some. The plants were in the same aquaponic grow bed divided by a divider so light didn't pass. I didn't record the data, but all the other variables were equal. Maybe I had an inferior LED product, but Watt for Watt the CFL beat the LED hands down. I would love to see this done using the higher end LED lights, but don't by those cheap ones (and they're really not that cheap in price just cheap in quality).

With all that said, I would happily set up some high-end LED arrays if they were a gift! :lol:

[WAbedroomponics]

so does just any light work or are their special lights for growing plants? and if there is special lights where would i find them? im thinking just to grow some herbs with the aqua ponics to start so i can work out the kinks before i go bigger. probaly only a 20-40 gallon tank with two 10"Wx24"Lx4"D grow beds

[davidstcldfl]

WAbedroomponics.....try to go deeper on the grow beds....you'll be surprised at how much roots a plant puts out....even a small one.

[urbanfarmer]

I agree, deeper grow beds! Usually, you want to shoot for around a foot, but my 10 gallon tank was on a 10" deep grow bed (not a big difference anywho).

If you are growing herbs you want lights with more blue spectrum. Try the daylight bulbs from 5500K - 6500K. I found that the cheap T12 bulbs for $1 @ 4100K did great as well. Basically, the bulbs that aren't yellow or daylight have more blue, which herbs can make use of more. Hope that helps :D