Hello from Boston

[urbanfarmer]

hi to all,
i am new one in this site and i like this site advice

Welcome, you should post a fresh thread to say hello

you might want the water to come up to about 1" under the top of your media.. plants didn't fair to well in my bed that was getting flooded to the top of the media

The reason to allow 1" to 2" of grow media between the top water level when flooding is to keep algae from growing because algae will take hold in the system and outcompete your plants for nutrients. Also, don't assume this means the plant will "drown" because when the bed drains it provides FAR more oxygen than any aerator could to your plant roots and bacteria!!! I have done the math for fun, and it is literally thousands of times more oxygen. LOL

Nate, CFL provide better light for plant growth than incandescents . I think you might need more light, and if nothing else, get that light right on top of your plants. When growing with floro's you should have your lights within a few inches of the plant tops(unless you are using high output lights), otherwise you will end up with very leggy plants that have low yield. I would suggest a small HID light. Metal halides are fairly well balanced, but high pressure sodiums work better for flowering plants. The light spectrum from incandescents is very poor for plant growth. Good luck!

Yes my friend, those are all better grow lights per wattage, but incandescent bulbs can provide adequate light as well. In reality, I would throw in an incandescent bulb or 2 in an indoor system. Why? Because, the incandescent bulb's spectrum is spread out like the sun, yes the sun. I have a quantitative spectroscope and I have visually inspected the light spectrum for these bulbs. They offer some spectrum and heat that the plants need but might not get enough of from low quantities of florescent bulbs. Anyway, they do eat a lot more power, but if you want to use them for seedlings or to supplement the light spectrum you provide to your plants, it won't hurt!!!

[urbanfarmer]

Artificial light and plant growth

Question: What color of artificial light works the best in plant growth?

Answer: Generally, a mixture of fluorescent and incandescent light
sources works very well. This produces a pretty good dose of all
of the important wavelengths. Either alone does not work as well.

Reference: http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasc...9/bio99144.htm

I just happened to stumble across that while looking for something totally unrelated, but equally geeky!