best indoor grow light for orchids? (catts, etc.)
 

hello,

living in a big city, it can be hard to find a well lit apartment due to the surrounding buildings. frequently the best light gets blocked out, even with south facing windows.

i will be moving in a few months & no idea what my lighting situation will be. does any one here have success growing cattleyas or other hight light orchids under indoor grow lights and *actually* getting them to flower?

which lights? bulbs, strips, led, otherwise. i am all ears.

thanks friends,
natalie

My Catts grow and bloom beautifully under lights. I use 4 foot t5 fixtures with four bulbs in each fixture. They were around 120 dollars I think. I got a big shop rack with three shelves, I got three fixtures, and then some other things I needed like a timer and a power strip an such. I put the whole thing together for about 500 dollars, and it was totally worth it. My plants do great under those lights. The Catts bloom twice a year for the most part, even the ones that usually only bloom once.

---------- Post added at 04:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:07 PM ----------

Robot Check

That's the rack I bought

---------- Post added at 04:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:11 PM ----------

Robot Check

And those are the light fixtures

---------- Post added at 04:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:11 PM ----------

I don't know why the links say "robot check", but click on them and you'll see there's no robots. Just good stuff to grow plants indoors.

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I just realized those light fixtures are no longer available, but any t5 fixture with 4 bulbs should do just fine. Here is one that is available right now:
Robot Check

---------- Post added at 04:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:14 PM ----------

I change the bulbs every other year. The are still working at that time, but the light intensity lessens over time, so I change the bulbs every two years. The bulbs aren't super expensive, so it isn't a huge issue.

Nowadays I would always go to LED, and for the most "bang for the buck", I highly recommend those sold by theorchidhobbyist.com

Best spectrum I've seen, and I truly don't know why his prices aren't higher. I have 4 x 4' strips, and the manufacturing quality matches the light quality.

I second Ray's recommendation.
I just received 4, 4' LED strips from Orchidhobbyist and they look good and seem to work great. I say "seem" only because I have only had them a week so hard to tell at this point how plants are faring under them but they are a very slick product, especially for the money.

I had to wait 2 months to get mine as Jeff (the owner) was backordered by his diode supplier but it was worth the wait. I suspect he should be able to do his normal turn-around delivery time now.

Well you've talked me into it. I've bought quite a few plants this summer, and I suspect I'm going to have to set up another grow rack with artificial lights when I bring them all inside in the fall, and I'm going to use these LEDs. I can't believe how cheap they are compared to my T5 fixtures I have, and it looks like they are strong enough to grow and bloom everything that I have, so that's that. Thanks Ray. I can't wait to buy them.

I have exactly what JScott has...the hydrofarm lights and the same shelves. I bought them before the LED lights were as good as they are now. They work great but, if I was doing it now, I would go LED. With my fluorescent lights, every two years, I have to go to a hydroponics store and buy a bunch of new bulbs and then nervously and very carefully remove the old ones and replace them with the new ones. The new LED lights last a long time.

Whatever lights you get, make certain that they have been tested for safety and have a UL certification and that you plug them into a power strip with a fuse/surge protector.

I think you're the one who suggested this exact setup to me, complete with links to the amazon listings where I could buy the stuff. If I'm right and it was you, I want to thank you for that. This setup has served me very well over the last three years or so. My plants love it. But as you said, I'm going to go LED on my next setup, which I think will have to be this fall. I don't think I have enough room to bring everything in this winter without another light setup. The ones Ray linked to looked really good. I like that shop rack you told me to buy, so I'll probably buy that same rack again, but just replace the T5s with the LEDs Ray linked to for my new grow area.

I have been a Hydrofarm reseller for decades, so I am able to get their stuff at wholesale. Before LEDs stated to “come of age” I was a big proponent and user of their T5 fluorescent lighting, but I believe they have gone off the rails with LEDs. The only ones they have in stock are super high-end stuff (with prices to match) meant to illuminate large areas. It may be they are suffering from Chinese supply chain issues like everyone else and just aren’t listing their more normal lighting.

I switched from T5 to LED and my power bill decreased. LED also produces much less heat which allowed me to use the AC less and keep my humidity higher. I think you will be pleased.

I guess it depends what you are looking for. I prefer to have more headroom over my plants and not the LED-strips so close over the canopy. But of course that takes more energy. In my grow room I use the Samsung LM301B wich is a real power horse. I use panels with 308 of these led's each and got 10 of these panels plus a couple of led-strips in my growroom. And you can bloom a Vanda 2,5m below these lights no problem. I have a wall (7m long x 2m high, 3 corners, so not one straight line) with mounted plants and pots at the bottom. edit: and 2 cheap tomato houses 2m long x 1,8m high and one growbox 1,2m long x 1,5m high. The lights shine at an angle from the top, so the decrease in light from top to bottom is not too extreme. Vanda, Rhynchostylis, Papilionanthe, Renanthera etc. all bloomed no problem. I actually had to make the distance between lights and plants larger, because even the Vandas showed red leaves of too much light. You could also dim the driver, but I didn't want the light to decrease at the bottom of the setup. Cattleya are either mounted at the top or in pots at the very bottom and bloom no problem either way. I keep Phalaenopsis, Stanhopea, Paphinia etc. way out of the light in the middle of the room, because otherwise it is too bright for them. These led's have a very high efficiency with over 200lm/watt (I could go into PAR and PPFD, if anyone is interested). At the moment I'm experimenting with adding red (660nm) and far red (730nm) to see if the emerson effect is noticeable.
But I guess such a setup is probably overkill for an apartment.