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How to get 25-30% more light

  • Thread starter fudog
  • Start date
Well I dont know if any of you are the same as me but I had never thought to clean my light bulbs. But man did it every make a difference. I had an almost invisiable layer of dust on the light bulbs. So I broke out the rubbing alcohol(sp) and a paper towel and wiped down all the bulbs. I know I gained a noticeable amount of light. Sry I dont have a light meter to measure for sure. But on the eyeball pain scale(looking at the light lol) it made a difference.

Maybe this will help someone
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It helped me
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Cool, i have a 96wats actinic pl bulb, for my salt water aquarium, and i love look it (it stun my eyes), but it amazing!, i clean it each month, it really help to keep light up.
 
Don't you just LOVE how we go to elaborate means to get everything perfect and all along we forget the simple stuff like cleaning off the bulbs.
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Thanks for the reminder.
 
It really did help my light output. There was barely a film on the bulbs.
imwindplant:
Im going to start cleaning mine once a month also
 
I must admit that I have not cleaned my bulbs in like 5 or months. I am sure that there is probably a pretty thick layer of dust on them by now. I will clean them this weekend. As Est mentioned, it is funny that we go to such lengths to make sure everything is perfect to grow our precious little plants but we do not even think about cleaning the bulbs that are pretty much their life support systems.
 
I love talk abouth light, how often is good change the bulbs?, i change the ones of the aquarium each year, and the ones of my house.... just wen they off lol
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, but plants need a bulb change?
 
Changing your bulbs every three months or so is a good idea, apparently. I'm told that bulbs begin to lose power and emit less light as they age, far before they actually burn out. So for plants, where the brightness matters, changing them before they die will help a lot.
~Joe
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Changing your bulbs every three months or so is a good idea, apparently. I'm told that bulbs begin to lose power and emit less light as they age, far before they actually burn out. So for plants, where the brightness matters, changing them before they die will help a lot.

Yeah. That's all well and good if you only have a few bulbs. My wife would SKIN me if I tried that, though. I have plants growing (just fine, I might add) under bulbs that are close to a year old.

I will clean them, though! I wish I'd thought of that!
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (schloaty @ Jan. 19 2006,2:16)]My wife would SKIN me if I tried that, though.
LOL- Same here from back when I had a grow rack... I changed mine every 6-9 months on a rotating basis... I just wrote the date directly on the bulbs and alternated which ones i changed. Also, keep your eyes open at lowes and such for when they sell the large packs on sale with the mail in rebate... I got awesome deals like that.
Andrew
 
  • #10
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I guess it was a good post after all.
 
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