FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

hi cp fans,

what type of fluorescent tubes should i get for germinating drosera and sarracinia.

cheers,
mitch

T8's or T12's will be fine. Narrowing it to 1, I'd get a T8 - 6500K would be fine if you plant to grow the seedlings under them. I'm not sure how much seedlings care about color temp though.

If you have heat problems, get T12's as T8's, while their output is greater, tend to run hotter.

If you do get T12's, make sure the ballast you get for them has an *electronic* ballast, not a magnetic ballast. A magnetic ballast runs hot.

All T8's use electronic ballasts.

Home Depot has "Philips Daylight Deluxe" T8 bulbs that are awesome for plants. They also sell T8-compatible ballasts for relatively cheap as well; so does Lowe's Ace Hardware, Wal-Mart, etc. But I really recommend the Philips Daylight Deluxe; they're very good lights, especially compared to similarly-priced bulbs.

One two-tube ballast is all you should need. Add more ballasts as you get more plants to put under them.

hi cp fans,

would 'sylvania lux line plus
f36w/860
daylight de luxe'
make seeds germinate
note: there's 2 of these tubes as it is a twin fiting.

cheers mitch

It sure will, by the way I recommend T5 tubes - they get less hot, put out more lumens etc. They're the most advanced neon tubes avaiable now (someone correct me if I'm wrong). But T8 are fine too, the difference can be important only when you put the lighting inside the terrarium (T5 are smaller and get less hot)

moof wrote:It sure will, by the way I recommend T5 tubes - they get less hot, put out more lumens etc. They're the most advanced neon tubes avaiable now (someone correct me if I'm wrong). But T8 are fine too, the difference can be important only when you put the lighting inside the terrarium (T5 are smaller and get less hot)

T5's actually get hotter than T8's. They're smaller and put out more lumens per watt. For germinating seedlings, T5's, T8's, or T12's would do fine. If you plan on growing the seedlings to or near adulthood under the lights, T5's would be best like moof said. If you're germinating seedlings and then moving them, T5's are overkill imo.

T5's are definitely better bulbs than T8's overall, and you see that reflected in the price difference of the bulbs and ballasts.

I've read somewhere that T4's are more efficient than T5's, but I know next to nothing about them.

I didn't knew about the temperature. I got confused a bit because I used T8 once, but then I realised that the T8 were 36W ones and my T5 are 8W:) that's why they are a bit cooler hehe

Ahhhh, ok