My LED's don't emits enough light, Why?

[Fabrizio Borrello]

about a month ago I bought 10 LED lamps, 10 watts each, to supply light to my grow beds.

The system is inside my kitchen and it doesn't receive direct sun light, so I decided to provide additional artificial light with LED's.

Who saw my plants told me that they are suffering the lack of lighting, because their stretched shape shows that.

I choose this solution to save money and energy, but it seems I wasted both money and energy :(

Here you can see the system working, I will appreciate your help, thank you very much in advance.

[Alex Veidel]

How far away are you hanging those lights from the plants?

[Fabrizio Borrello]

Hi Alex,

the distance between lights and plants is about 40 centimeters.

Alex Veidel said:

How far away are you hanging those lights from the plants?

[Japan Aquaponics - アクアポニックス 日本]

That could be your answer Fabrizio.... the lights could be much closer to your plants - within about 10cms should be good.  If all else is equal in your system then the distance between your plants and the lights is a little bit too much - especially as it sounds like these are not necessarily high-powered lights.

Fabrizio Borrello said:

Hi Alex,

the distance between lights and plants is about 40 centimeters.

Alex Veidel said:

How far away are you hanging those lights from the plants?

[Robert C. Wood]

from the video I could only see one spectrum of light. I do know that plants need three spectrums to do well and if I am remembering wright they are red blue and orange. I am sorry I do not remember what the wave lengths are. 

[Fabrizio Borrello]

thank you guys, I will modify the distance between LED's and plants. stay tuned for further upgrades

[Ron Faulkner]

Were the LEDs sold as being suitable for use as grow lights or were they just standard LEDs?

LEDs have quite a narrow spectrum of light output and if that spectrum is not what the plants require then they won't have much effect.

Also with regard to the distance of the LEDs above the plants, halving the distance will increase the amount of light that the plants receive by four times.as the illumination is proportional to the distance squared.  So reducing the distance to 10 cms from 40cms as Japan Aquaponics advises will give you 16 times the amount of light reaching the plants.

Bear in mind though that the LEDs only have a relatively narrow angle of emission, usually no more than 20 or 25 degrees so you may have to compromise the distance in order to avoid black areas and get even illumination to all the plants.

[D Mauro]

I agree. You need more white/blue spectrum for growing - more yellow/red for fruiting.  Looks cool though.What is the brand of LED?

Robert C. Wood said:

from the video I could only see one spectrum of light. I do know that plants need three spectrums to do well and if I am remembering wright they are red blue and orange. I am sorry I do not remember what the wave lengths are. 

[Jerry Wei Jie]

Hi Fabrizio, how was your latest update of your plant after adjust the distance?