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I grow my tomato and other seedlings indoors Under florcecents. All florecents arent created equal.
take a trip to home depot or wal mart, and look for FLOREX security flood lights. the unit houses a 65 watt bulb that puts out 4500 lumens, and a light temp of 6500. the florex lights are very BLUE. They grow excellent seeedlings and small plants. The are also fantastic for a corner light to grow any houseplant or group of houseplants. They tend to hinder flowers because of the blue cast, which is more like sunlight inthe spring. If you want to flower, toy need to cast some red spectrum in there and some standard florecents for the home/shop cast these. the advantage of the florex is, they are compact, hange easy, and eat only 65 watts. standard shop light fixtures work, but you have to set them close, the florex fixtures can be set further away, thus you can set more plants under them. with tomatoes I get good stocky seedlings if I limit one florex to 4 Sq. feet (2'x2') and the light 2' off the table. The fixtures run @ 30 bucks each and include a bulb thats rated for 10,000 hours. a replacement bulb is about 8 bucks. I have 4, spaced along an 8' long 3' wide table, which I usually pack full of seedlings and all grow good without getting leggy. (you have to rotare the center plants with the ones on the table edge of course)
they are cheaper than a HPS type setup, cheaper to run and the replacement bulbs are cheaper. And they burn COOL. (HPS or HID lights are HOT, and burn 500 to 700 watts per light.) Drawback; they are made of plastic, and dont take well to being knocked around. I used to have standard shop lights for seedlings, but after trying one florex, I switched. for seedlings the blue full specrum of the florex works much better.
take a trip to home depot or wal mart, and look for FLOREX security flood lights. the unit houses a 65 watt bulb that puts out 4500 lumens, and a light temp of 6500. the florex lights are very BLUE. They grow excellent seeedlings and small plants. The are also fantastic for a corner light to grow any houseplant or group of houseplants. They tend to hinder flowers because of the blue cast, which is more like sunlight inthe spring. If you want to flower, toy need to cast some red spectrum in there and some standard florecents for the home/shop cast these. the advantage of the florex is, they are compact, hange easy, and eat only 65 watts. standard shop light fixtures work, but you have to set them close, the florex fixtures can be set further away, thus you can set more plants under them. with tomatoes I get good stocky seedlings if I limit one florex to 4 Sq. feet (2'x2') and the light 2' off the table. The fixtures run @ 30 bucks each and include a bulb thats rated for 10,000 hours. a replacement bulb is about 8 bucks. I have 4, spaced along an 8' long 3' wide table, which I usually pack full of seedlings and all grow good without getting leggy. (you have to rotare the center plants with the ones on the table edge of course)
they are cheaper than a HPS type setup, cheaper to run and the replacement bulbs are cheaper. And they burn COOL. (HPS or HID lights are HOT, and burn 500 to 700 watts per light.) Drawback; they are made of plastic, and dont take well to being knocked around. I used to have standard shop lights for seedlings, but after trying one florex, I switched. for seedlings the blue full specrum of the florex works much better.
