Plant Rack

[andy83]

My girlfriend and I wound up with a nice light and have been wanting to setup a more sophisticated plant rack to grow broms and orchids with some other tropicals. We're mainly focusing on vivarium plants.

Here is a shot of the rack at 2pm est


The eastern window will help provide plenty more light for part of the day. If it ends up being too much then I'll deal with that later. The fixture is 4x65 watt bulbs. Im going to put up some of those cheap mylar survival blankets and maybe even place some vinyl over most of it.

[andy83]

The ac vent at the top will help cool the lights and I may even direct some of that toward the plants somehow. I will at least have a fan in there. The bottom vent will have mylar in between that and the plants.

I'll probably move the shelves once the plants arrive. There will be humidity trays in there to keep the humidity at least 70%.

I know that 6700k lights are pretty much the way to go with growing plants but since I have four bulbs in this fixture and need to replace them all I've been thinking of mixing it up a bit for the plants. I haven't been able to find any 65watt bulbs lower than 6700k yet. Will any higher k help the plants? I will have at least two 6700k bulbs and would like to get two that are either higher or lower if that will do me any good. Otherwise it will just be 4 6700k's.

Any suggestions?

[Ross]

Are these t5's?

[andy83]

They are 65 watt cf's.

[Ross]

I use CF "full spectrum" to supplement south window daylight and they seem to work just fine. Not sure what the K is but they are advertized as "full spectrum" so go figure? I use 4 t5 straight bulbs over orchidarium with 3 6500K and 1 3000 K for an average K of 5600 or so. Hope this is of help in some way.

[andy83]

Cool, thanks for the ideas.

These lights are not the spiral kind they are the straight pin cf's. If anybody knows where to get any below the 6700k range then let me know.

[andy83]

Now I just have to complete the front. It will be vinyl with a zipper running down the middle. As it is the day temp is about 85 with 50% humidity. Nighttime temps are around 72 with around 50 humidity as well. The front shall change all of this.

[andy83]

Here is a picture with the front on. The only orchid I have in there so far is a discolor but I'm sure more will squeeze their way in.

[puddin]

In the very first photo, what is that thing hanging from the ceiling?

[andy83]

That is a wooden hedgehog. We have an african hedgehog as a pet so we have some hedgehog decor here and there.