A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

jrtroubleshotter indoor lights

i have a 400 HPS, 400 MH both on one mover covering 4 feet by 10 feet of grow area.

currently one light is about 2 feet above some exisiting pants, lime tree, cinantro, lemon grass, long beens and edenambe, The other is about a foot over some mixed seedlings. I am running the bulbs in cool tubes so I can get the heat out in the summer but am not venting them now.

I tried a fesna sol water coloed light thinking that it would warm my water, but it did not get the water very warm and had a major algee bloom on the lens

I also have a T5 8 bulb fixture over one of my 90 gallon tanks that I use for seedlings, clones, and may grow out something in the furture. It is hydro farm light and what I like about it is that it has 2 seprate switches so most of the time I just run the middle 4 bulbs.

I really want to try some LED's but have not been able to get any good reliable information. I have spent a bunch of time looking at the ganja forms and have seen a bunch of mixed results. I went to a manufacture to get more information and it was a guy from China that did have not clue about growing plants and only a little more about LED's. What was scary was that he had some lights that he got off ebay and showed me how they had small heat sinks, cheap power supplies and other cost savings features. Many of these lights were sent to him because they needed repair and the owners could not find anybody to work on them. My next step is there is a lot of discussion on these lights from other forums and they are kinda close to my house when I have a chance I am going to look at them and maybe buy one to check out. http://www.gothamhydroponics.com/grow-lights/gotham-hydro-led-grow-...

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by AJ Grottke on February 21, 2011 at 9:19am

Cool lighting setup! JR how did you run your H2O-cooled HID, i have been looking into that option? Also do you have any idea what caused the algae bloom, other than light which algae needs to grow? Did you run the H2O-cooled HID off tank H2O or did you run it off clean water in a closed loop with a heat exchanger int the FT? On the LED side, i have personal mixed reactions. My friends run 2 at their hydro store, and they do get yields from their peppers. I know that canopy penetration is weak compared to HID, but LED have so much NRG savings it is hard to resist experimenting w/ them. One other thing w/ LED is that each individual LED bulb only has one color. They do mix a few together now, but the spectrum for T5 or HID is much more diverse. I would love to experiment w/ them, doing side by side tests, but i dont have the $. I do know that they work well for clones/ seedlings.

Permalink Reply by jrtroubleshooter on February 21, 2011 at 10:12am

I ran H2O straight from reserivor was hoping it would reduce use of my heater, and was considering seprate reserivor for summer if things got to hot. That is why had algee bloom as water was to aquaponics mix.

I am in same boat with LEDs want to do side by side comparisim. Maybe nexy month if I can pull some overtime$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Permalink Reply by AJ Grottke on February 21, 2011 at 12:53pm

LOL, i think there is not as much experimentation w/ LED because the price is very prohibitive. LED are fun though because i think they would be the light of choice for growing food hydro in space. I was reading an article about how they are trying to integrate hydroponics systems into space ships for NASA, and they did talk about how LED is the light of choice for them.

For the H20 cooled light, i would not give up on that idea, i think that is GOLD. The H20 should be on its own loop. IE have its own H2O supply separate from the AP systems H2O. Then use a heat exchanger and submerge that into the fish tank. U could also run a UV sterilizer on the closed loop H2O-cooled lighting system to further prevent algae and build-up. Also running water chillers is more efficient than doing air cooled lighting. The technology is incredible; i have put my hand 1/2" away from the glass on a 1000W bulb in an H2O-cooled system and my hand didn't even get hot! That was using a chiller of course. When i can afford it, H2O-cooled lighting is the way im going, even if I have to add a chiller.

Permalink Reply by jrtroubleshooter on February 21, 2011 at 2:16pm

wish we have talked sooner I just sold it on ebay for $100 loss but was ready to move on....they do have some draw backs interms of safty if water flow stops, which I was planing on moneriting with my neptune.

Permalink Reply by AJ Grottke on February 21, 2011 at 6:38pm

Damn, yeah i prolly would have bought that reflector! Oh well. There are ways to protect against the h2o flow stopping, but that is an extremely rare occurrence. My buddies at the hydro store have run 1 for like 2 years now with that never happening.