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Lights too far from the plants...

I've got my Nepenthes in an old 30 gal fish tank. The current lighting situation is heating things up to around 90F in parts of the terrarium, which to me seems a bit on the warm side for growing highlanders. I plan on using two 20W, and two 15W fluorescent tubes instead of the CFLs, but many of the plants are around 17 inches below the lights and it doesn't look as bright as it did with the CFLs.

Any input?

Edit - Moved it in front of my window where it will receive morning sun, and good indirect light most of the day. Along with those four tubes supplementing that, I think it should work out well? I know, my plants will tell me, but still. :rolleyes:
 
I've got my Nepenthes in an old 30 gal fish tank. The current lighting situation is heating things up to around 90F in parts of the terrarium, which to me seems a bit on the warm side for growing highlanders. I plan on using two 20W, and two 15W fluorescent tubes instead of the CFLs, but many of the plants are around 17 inches below the lights and it doesn't look as bright as it did with the CFLs.

Any input?

Edit - Moved it in front of my window where it will receive morning sun, and good indirect light most of the day. Along with those four tubes supplementing that, I think it should work out well? I know, my plants will tell me, but still. :rolleyes:

Generally speaking, you want the lights as close to the plants as possible (keep in mind that grow lights offer only the tiniest fraction of what the sun offers) but I imagine that Nepenthes may be a bit more forgiving than other CPs, since they do enjoy their share of shading.

If you are simply supplementing the sunlight and have sufficent indirect lighting as you describe, you should be good to go. Simply watch the plant's growth rate and see. We all have to do a bit of experimentation from time to time to see what works . . .
 
Thanks for the response BB. My gut feeling after this morning was that putting the terrarium near the window would not help like I wanted it to. After trying out a few other things, I did what I should have done to begin with and took off the foil and moved one of the lights farther towards the other side of the tank. Also added another 15W tube. Temperatures seem to have evened out to around 81F. :)
 
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