Along with water, hydroponics plant nutrients, CO2 and oxygen, grow lights is the key basic component, required by plants to live. Providing additional light is necessary for indoor gardening. Furthermore, light should resemble the sunlight as much as possible. The major concern with other types of lights is that they do not produce light in the appropriate spectrum, required by plants.

Being the most efficient bulbs, HPS bulbs are commonly used by gardeners. Producing light in red and yellow spectrum, light generated by high pressure sodium lamps resembles the natural sunlight during autumn. Due to this peculiarity, HPS light is the best for promoting plants blooming. However, some plants may react negatively to this type of light, growing with oblong stem, etc. To address that issue, new HPS bulbs with color correction have been developed. For example, Son Argo feature properly balanced light spectrum, which suits perfectly for the needs of indoor gardening.

High pressure sodium grow lamps are made of a semi-transparent ceramic arc tube, filled with a mixture of sodium, mercury, and xenon. The arc tube is placed into the protective outer glass shield, similarly to metal halide bulbs. The power ranges of HPS bulbs vary from 35w to 1000w, while the most popular are 250w, 400w, 600w and 1000w.  Read more...

One can enjoy hydroponics gardening any season of the year, but it is especially rewarding during the cold and dark winter days. Being a type of indoor gardening, this system implies growing of plants in a special growing medium, supplied with nutrient solution, instead of soil. Similarly to other indoor gardening methods, with hydroponics gardening it is necessary to use grow lights, which allow plants to grow, make food and reproduce themselves through flowers or fruits. For this purpose HID lights are commonly used. There are several types of HID or high-intensity discharge lights: for example, metal halide grow lights and HPS grow lights. Every HID light requires digital ballast, which is necessary in order to control electrical current within the lamp, and thus provide its seamless functioning. Supplying light with a reflector is highly recommended as well, since it allows pointing the light in proper direction and increasing the light, produced by the bulb itself. Other type of grow lights are cost-effective and lightweight LED lights, where light-emitting diodes are used to produce light in colors beneficial for keeping up plant growth. The use of any of these lamps is highly effective for hydroponics growing.  Read more...

A great indoor garden requires a good grow light. It could mean the difference between success and failure. Having the right hydroponic light is the single-most important and costly decision in setting up your garden.

 Hydroponic grow lights come in three main types:

 

Incandescent lights

These are the usual lights found in homes. They are generally a poor choice for garden grown lights because of their limited light spectrum and inefficiency.

HID (High Intensity Discharge) grow lights

Producing more light (up to 10x more lumens/watt than an incandescent light),are more efficient. Drawbacks would be, they produce more heat, generally more expensive than incandescent lights and requires the additional expense and maintenance with ballast. It takes around 100 hours before hydroponic HID grow lights reach their optimum working conditions, or until they reach light intensity and color stability. 

Natural Sunlight

Expense for acquiring artificial lights can be skipped by using sunlight. This is done with the use of solar room, greenhouse or large windows which allows plenty of sunlight. Or you can do this outdoors; hydroponics does not necessarily mean the cultivation of plants indoors but it growing plants without the use of soil.  Read more...

Along with water,  hydroponics plant nutrients, Co2 and oxygen, grow lights is the key basic component, required by plants to live. Providing additional light is necessary for indoor gardening. Furthermore, light should resemble the sunlight as much as possible. In order to achieve that goal several types of lights are used: incandescent, fluorescent, high intensity discharge or HID lamps and sulfur lights. While there are many other types of lighting, only the mentioned above are recommended for indoor gardening. The major concern with other types of lights is that they do not produce light in the appropriate spectrum, required by plants.

Though typical widely used incandescent lamps fit any ordinary light socket, this type of lighting is considered to be the least effective in lighting your garden in comparison with other types of lighting. Incandescent lights produce light in the red spectrum; that is why such lamps are commonly covered with a blue coating in order to increase the amount of blue spectrum in the produced light. In general, incandescent lights are considered to be poor options for indoor gardening needs.  Read more...