FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

It will be here tomorrow. I'll post pics as soon as I set it up which will be right away lol

All setup. Its at 18" above the plants right now and that seems pretty far away. I could move it up more or down more, the ratchet hangars i ordered with it make that easy. Should move them higher? I did try 24" but man that seems really far away.



One pic just for Bob

I have mine at 18 inches and it seems to do well so far. All my dews are coloring up nicely.

Im tempted to bring it down to 12".

My 2 cents: As for CFL lights you want to put them as close to the plant as possible! They produce very week par (Photosynthetic Active Radiation) which plants needs in abundance and in different spectrums.

Here’s a typical spectrum a 6500k cfl produces:




About 2 inches is usually the closest you can get em before it starts to hurt the plant! If you are unsure hold your hand up to the light at the distance your plant was! If it’s hot ur too close if not your good to go! The bad thing about them being only 2 inches is if u don’t watch them they will try and commit suicide by growing into the light and burning up. Lol


Here some pics of my VFT grown under a 6500k 1600 Lumen CFL at about 4 inches away from the plant!

Before/ when I first got the VFT:





After about 3 to 4 weeks gone by:




As for the mars-hydro 300w LED, ya you can lower it if u want! Because it only produces about 445 par at the very center at a height of 18”! The sun produces about 2000 par.

I only say that because from what I was told vft’s can withstand full sun but they don’t like the full mid day sun which the 2000 par reading was supposedly taken. So I’m not really sure!

*Note:

I’m not sure of the par requirements of a vft

*Note:

I’m not entirely sure if the 2000 par reading is right, since I haven’t personally tested daylight with a par meter, most likely it’s higher!

Here’s a pic of the marshydro 300w par spread




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Fieldofscreams wrote:Im tempted to bring it down to 12".

Keep an eye on your plants for leaf-burn from excessive light.

Mine are about 16 - 18 inches away from most plants.

This is too bright for some species.

After a month, they were still unhappy with the high light level, so I moved them down to a lower shelf under a smaller light.

Good growing,
Mike

Fieldofscreams wrote:Im tempted to bring it down to 12".

I wouldn't yet. Try it out out 18. If they do ok then maybe try a couple inches closer. You don't want to burn your plants.

A good option for a cfl replacement is a grow led bulb! It was only about $10 on eBay.

I just got one for my vft, It came in the mail today! :3

The model I got is only a 50w replacement but that’s more then enough for my setup, and It even has IR and UV! Yay! I currently only have it about 6 inches away.



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Gak. .


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Bob Beer wrote:Gak. .

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I'm going to keep it at 18" and see how it goes for now.

Volmen, I looked at getting just bulbs but I'm pretty sure I'm going to expand my collection and I would need a 1 bulb and fixture per plant and that would end up costing me far more than the hydro 300w. I still might pick up one more just to have on hand.

Yeah no problem I wasn’t sure if you were planning on expanding your collection, but mars Hydro is a good light for the money I actually have four of them!

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