What type of orchids are you growing and how many do you have ? Rich
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I've been looking for the right grow lights so I can keep my orchids indoors year round. I've been using cheap grow lights I bought at a hardware store but I want to upgrade to something better. Does anyone have some advise for a beginner?
Last edited by Brutal_Dreamer; November 27th, 2010 at 02:42 PM. Reason: vendor links removed - see FAQs on posting
What type of orchids are you growing and how many do you have ? Rich
I have around 50. Mostly cattleya and I have a few phrags and paphs too. I live in PA so the past few summers I've moved them outdoors but I'm going to set up lights in my house and keep them inside year round.
I have my (roughly 200) orchids in my basement on shelves over the winter. For the cymbidiums and oncidium alliance I use a 4 foot long shop light with two wide spectrum bulbs. I might step it up to two 4 foot shop fixtures (a total of 4 bulbs) above them. The catts all ready have either two 4 foot shop fixtures or one shelf has a three bulb high output T8 fixture, and I am playing with some LED's, too. The T 12 florescent shop fixtures have a daylight or sunshine bulb that is wider spectrum than the normal cheap shoplight bulb. The HO T8 fixture uses brighter high ouput bulbs that I order over the internet. The LEd christmas light strings I am playing with have c6 and c10 bulbs.
I use high output T5 four foot tubes in a fixture with 4 bulbs and get catts to bloom. The T5 is a bit strong for phals so I use regular shop lights for them. The T5 really put out much more light than shop lights.
Frank
Thanks for all the suggestions! I just ordered a 4 foot 2 bulb HO T5 fixture for my cattleyas (my shelf isn't wide enough for the 4 bulb fixture) and I'm going to get a 2 foot version for my phrags.