A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

LED LIGHTING

Hello, I'm going to set up a IBC system with one grow bed. Can someone tell me what I need for as watts and power, and what light you would recommend . Thanks

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on July 21, 2013 at 3:35pm

I would probably recommend getting a 400 watt Metal halide light for over the grow bed, that way a single light mounted high enough to allow you to grow a variety of plants would work.

As soon as you start playing with LED or florescent lighting you have to place the lights really close to the plants and you usually wind up needing about the same amount of wattage overall anyway. So far I've not had anyone tell me a particular LED package that can stand alone without any other lighting and the better LED stuff costs quite a lot too. The florescent lights need their tubes replaced every 6 months to provide good usable light for the plants and by having the lights right down close to the plants you are limited to growing all the same size crop AND the fixtures will block out any natural lighting you might have.

Now I'm mostly just repeating what I've read since I use natural sun light in my location. In the past I have grown lettuce under florescent lighting but you REALLY need the lights within a couple inches of touching the leaves to be effective and the light fixture has to cover about the same footprint as the grow beds. In other words you would need at least 2, 4'-4 tube T5 fixtures to cover the footprint of an IBC grow bed which is going to be over 400 watts and limiting you to growing all one size crops. Might as well go with the high intensity discharge light you can have up higher away from the plants to allow you to grow more variety. Hang an emergency blanket or two around the grow bed to reflect some of the light back in and keep it from turning the whole room too bright to stand.

To get LED lighting to do the job would probably cost you several thousand dollars in light fixtures that I've yet only heard questionable reviews on so far.

Permalink Reply by Gary Cotton on July 21, 2013 at 6:53pm

Thanks so much for the information. I have a 400 watt metal halide light so that's what I will use. I just got the ideal LEP were better. I had a person tell me that I could use 7-8 Phillips light bars. What is that, 7 or 8 lines of light on a panel? He also recommend a single Lumigrow LED panel - which is way to much money. I might just set it up outside, I haven't decided yet, the problem here in west Texas is it get so hot during the summer.

TCLynx said:

I would probably recommend getting a 400 watt Metal halide light for over the grow bed, that way a single light mounted high enough to allow you to grow a variety of plants would work.

As soon as you start playing with LED or florescent lighting you have to place the lights really close to the plants and you usually wind up needing about the same amount of wattage overall anyway. So far I've not had anyone tell me a particular LED package that can stand alone without any other lighting and the better LED stuff costs quite a lot too. The florescent lights need their tubes replaced every 6 months to provide good usable light for the plants and by having the lights right down close to the plants you are limited to growing all the same size crop AND the fixtures will block out any natural lighting you might have.

Now I'm mostly just repeating what I've read since I use natural sun light in my location. In the past I have grown lettuce under florescent lighting but you REALLY need the lights within a couple inches of touching the leaves to be effective and the light fixture has to cover about the same footprint as the grow beds. In other words you would need at least 2, 4'-4 tube T5 fixtures to cover the footprint of an IBC grow bed which is going to be over 400 watts and limiting you to growing all one size crops. Might as well go with the high intensity discharge light you can have up higher away from the plants to allow you to grow more variety. Hang an emergency blanket or two around the grow bed to reflect some of the light back in and keep it from turning the whole room too bright to stand.

To get LED lighting to do the job would probably cost you several thousand dollars in light fixtures that I've yet only heard questionable reviews on so far.