Indoor aquaponics with LED growlights based on Chop

[cat2wisson]

Thanks for the advice on the lights, Guess I'll be building a stand for the lights so I can raise/lower them as needed. I'll have to post some pics after I get it all set up. I just finished assembling the pvc plumbing a couple minutes ago I'm going to test it tomorrow to see if there are any leaks and to see if the bell siphons work as planned.

[vihalvor]

.. i have a question about grow lights....
now .. the plants are thriving at a certain spectre of the lights, bluish for growth, and more into the red ( purpleish) for flowering, i seem to remember...
if i have a room with growing plants, where i cover the walls and roof with reflective padding, and put in some flourescent lighting, i can buy lights ( OSRAM brand ) that are well into the blue range .. but.. not the warmer kind.. CAN i fix that by changing to a pure white, and adding some colored plastic film around the lights, like i see they do on the film sets? .. would that change the necessary lightwarmth or whatever its called , necessary to promote growth and flowering ??

-vidar-

[Pseudoreality]

.. i have a question about grow lights....
now .. the plants are thriving at a certain spectre of the lights, bluish for growth, and more into the red ( purpleish) for flowering, i seem to remember...
if i have a room with growing plants, where i cover the walls and roof with reflective padding, and put in some flourescent lighting, i can buy lights ( OSRAM brand ) that are well into the blue range .. but.. not the warmer kind.. CAN i fix that by changing to a pure white, and adding some colored plastic film around the lights, like i see they do on the film sets? .. would that change the necessary lightwarmth or whatever its called , necessary to promote growth and flowering ??

-vidar-

I don't think that would work. The colour film likely simply filters out various wavelengths of light, but does not converted it. So all you are doing is reducing the total light the plant gets and not focusing it on the wavelengths you want. It doesn't hurt your plant to give it light it doesn't use, heck the sun pumps out radiation at all sorts of wavelengths that's not used by plants. It's just LEDs can be designed to only generate light on a very specific wavelength and if you focus that on what the plant uses you can maximize your efficiency.

I use one of those LED UFO lights that consists of 45 1watt blue lights and 45 1watt red lights for a total of 90watts. It does a great job of providing light for a growing area of about 4 square feet and works much better than the fluorescents I used last year. It's super bright though and I'd be blinded if I didn't wrap the growing area in a reflective insulation blanket.