FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Are full spectrum lighting (380-840 nm) LED's all right for carnivorous plants? (30 LEDs at 3 watts each.)

I'm growing some Pings under an old DIY aquarium fixture which has white and actinic blue LEDs and the plants are quite happy. If the fixture is kept close to your plants, it should be sufficient. This really isn't any different than using white fluorescent bulbs.

If you have yet to buy this fixture, why not get one with more reds and blues to be more efficient? I just purchased a ufo type for about $85 https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00FGFW0 ... ref=plSrch


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

lothar123 wrote:I'm growing some Pings under an old DIY aquarium fixture which has white and actinic blue LEDs and the plants are quite happy. If the fixture is kept close to your plants, it should be sufficient. This really isn't any different than using white fluorescent bulbs.

If you have yet to buy this fixture, why not get one with more reds and blues to be more efficient? I just purchased a ufo type for about $85 https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00FGFW0 ... ref=plSrch


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Doesnt the full spectrum contain the nessicary blue (432nm) and red (around 800nm) spectrums allready?

Yes, but they also produce a fair amount of green and yellow light. The former isn't used by plants for photosynthesis. One a per watt basis, the most efficient fixtures have primarily red and blue LEDs.

A 90W red and blue LED fixture can produce better growth than a 120W white fixture. The only drawback of grow lights is that they are hard for humans to work under. Some people even get nauseous.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

lothar123 wrote:Yes, but they also produce a fair amount of green and yellow light. The former isn't used by plants for photosynthesis. One a per watt basis, the most efficient fixtures have primarily red and blue LEDs.

A 90W red and blue LED fixture can produce better growth than a 120W white fixture. The only drawback of grow lights is that they are hard for humans to work under. Some people even get nauseous.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I personally think the green and yellow light are just a bonus if the plants are getting all the light they need from the blue and red spectrum it is giving off as well. Therefore Imdont really care about the yellow and green spectrums as they are doing no damage,

Well the green and yellow do use energy. And it doesnt benefit your plants. But it is easier to look at

Verstuurd vanaf mijn HTC One M8s met Tapatalk

dutchplantlover wrote:Well the green and yellow do use energy. And it doesnt benefit your plants. But it is easier to look at

Verstuurd vanaf mijn HTC One M8s met Tapatalk

Still better to have those colors not just for the sake of easier viewing, but also to bring the color ratio closer to the sun

If i learned anything from this forum is that you can ask feedback or something and get it. If you dont like it you just deny it

Verstuurd vanaf mijn HTC One M8s met Tapatalk

Gry wrote: Still better to have those colors not just for the sake of easier viewing, but also to bring the color ratio closer to the sun

If not for the sake of viewing, and not used by the plants, why do you feel it's still better to have them? If not for the benefit of your eyes or the plants, why pay to generate the wavelength?

Doesn't matter for the plant if light is similar to sunlight or it's just red-blue mixture that works best for the photosynthesis process. Your power bill will note the difference, though and every Watt that gets spent for greenish light that doesn't get used by the plant will cost you a tiny bit, but it adds. The next issue is heating, every watt that gets used also heats up the LED chip (or any other bulb) and you have to take away that heat. When plants can use the light, you don't really mind if you pay for the energy and then blow it away from the plants, but if it's just an unnecessary energy wasted on, well, nothing,.. You start thinking differently.

I've built full spectrum LED setup and replaced my warm/cool white LED light setup. It was super bright 200W LED setup (I do suspect, however that the chips were only 50W each, which makes it 100W). I thought it was working great until I built that red and blue light.2 50W LED chips are not as bright, but the plants thrive under the lights. I have broke any possible speed record growing bamboo seedlings using that light. In 3 months, plants overpassed the size of more than 6 months old plants I grew with old light setup. For half the used power and much less heating. The only thing that bothers me is the funky colour. If I work around the plants for more than a couple of minutes, I see the colours messed up after I leave the room. In a minute or two my vision returns to normal when I reset temporary colour detection adaptation.

I've been writing about the carnivores under those lights, perhaps someone is interested in reading:
Colour change of my Capensis seedlings under full spectrum light setup
One of the posts about my current bamboo seedlings, there are other posts with more observations,..
I'm working on an article about building the LED light, but it's not really finished yet. Hopefully it will be, before the spring.