Supplimental lighting?

[jhaluska]

I live in an apartment and there is no perfect natural light solution for my VFTs other than putting them out in the middle of a field.

Currently my plants reside on my kitchen's window sill and get between 4-6 hours of direct morning sunlight. I think they would do better with an extra 4-6 hours of artificial light to suppliment the sunlight. There is a single light fixture about 30" above the plants now. I was wondering if anybody knew of a decent inexpensive light bulb that I could put in there to give them a little more additional light. Preferably one I could pick up at Walmart or Lowes. I'm also considering somehow of lowering the light socket to being closer to the plants.

Keep in mind the idea is to just suppliment the sunlight not completely replace. I also don't want to overload the plants if the light+sunlight are both on at the same time (which I think is impossible considering how high the light is right now), but I think anything would be better than nothing in the afternoon to evening.

 

[jhaluska]

Ok, I gave up.

I deemed the little light above the kitchen wouldn't give adequate lighting, would burn out quickly and use a lot of electricity. So I got a twin 48" setup, a timer with 15 minute increments and two 90 CRI, 2200 Lumen lights. These plants are getting expensive...I'm going to need more plants to justify it...yeah thats it..more plants.

 

[BigCarnivourKid]

"Hello.........My name is jhaluska and I am a CP addict. Can you help me improve the lighting for my plants?"

The first step is addmitting you have a problem. The next step is to get more plants to fix the "problem"........

.

 

[Cerius]

Exactly my thoughts BGK.

All you need..is to buy more plants...or seeds! They are cheaper...continue the buying of plants, and you'll settle your little "problem".





P.S....BUY MORE PLANTS!!

Oh...I guess you'll need more lights too..and food..and water..and room...so what! Buy more plants!

 

[jhaluska]

Well, I just spent more on the light setup than the plants cost! lol  

  What am I thinking? Oh well they are cheaper than real friends.

I wanted to just use the light setup when the sun wasn't shining, but I couldn't figure out a way to hang the light above the windowsill. I live in an apartment so I can't do anything permanent to the ceiling. I'd also like to hook up a light sensor so the lights would only be on when it wasn't sunny. Might have to build one sensitive enough for that tho.

I hopefully will have some seeds coming soon, then I can bring the cost per plant down.

 

[BigCarnivourKid]

Just measured my 10 gallon aquarium.  It's 20" long, so 2 of them end to end is 40".  With a 48 inch light you have 8" to spare. Just enough room for a couple more VFTs in a 6" pot.

Oops! Sorry.  Forgot the idea was to help you save money, not find more ways to spend it.

 

Anywho, if you had two 10g terrariums end to end you could lay the light across the top of them.