Tanie, Calgary is 51 degrees north. How many hours of daylight will you get in November, December and January?

There's something called spectrum and different lights emit different amounts of artificial sunlight and even vitamins. It's not measured by wattage I know that. It's kind of hard to understand for me but keep track of the temperature so they don't get fried.

Tanie, here is another snippet while you are waiting for an under lights expert to appear.

Here is a link that might be useful: Light requirements per genera FAQ

Thank you Arthur and Cooper,
Arthur! The link above is very helpful to me. I'll start to pay attention tomorrow right away to see how many hours of sunlight do I have. I think it would be medium (around 4 hours). I thought I heard Terpguy said a while ago. ( I could be remembered it wrong) that with LED, I can have the light higher up. Don't have to be close like fluorescent light? So far, in my living room with an octopus light. My Phals, Milts., Brassia and 1 kind of Oncidium seem to like it, but my Nelly Isler, Dendrobium never rebloom, and there's 1 kind of oncidium just give me 1 spike. I have 4 mini catts I got last June, 3 of them give me new shoots except for Emeral Green. But now move them to the sun room it will be different. So, I am a bit nervous. It'll be definitely warmer during the day and it will be cooler at night. But I have a little gas fireplace I can keep them warm. Just the light that I am not sure.

If any of you can give me some "light" with distance of LED light. I would be very grateful. I don't know how I can raise the orchids up closer to the ceiling if I really have to do that. Otherwise, I will have to use octopus light as I did in the living room.( I was hoping I don't have to use it).

Thank you,

Tanie

I keep wanting to buy the square LED light from china but it says hydroponics. Is it one of those with the red and blue?

No Cooper, It's pretty much like a regular light bulb except for it's white but not clear like the other. But I think you're also right too because I saw a lots of different kinds. It's a lot brighter than the other regular light. I put only 1 on each set of each corner of my little room and it flooded with light. It said to last about 22.8 years! This morning, I tried to take the ones in the corners to put them all on the set above the sink and it dropped but it didn't break. So, it's a lot tougher also.

Tanie

This post was edited by Tanie51 on Sun, Oct 12, 14 at 21:44

Hmm. Well LED lights are a very new invention, just a couple decades I think. Testing the different spectrums or whatever would take some kind of lab or special equipment. Most of the pictures I looked at had the bulbs very close to the plants- even less than a foot from the outer leaves but I'd be nervous about some kind of burning effect. All I use is just one 15 watt aquarium and plant bulb as a supplement to whatever comes in the window.

Tanie,

I think the general consensus for distance between plants and higher wattage LED's (> 15 watts) is about 20 inches. LED's can burn a plant if they are high wattage and get much closer than 10"-20". I know :(

What is the wattage of the LEDs?

Good luck,

Bob

Good morning and thank you Bob,

It says on the box 60 watt equivalent. Energy used 10 watt. So, it looks like I still have to supplement with octopus light for my Catts, Oncidium and dendro. The rest should be okay I think?
I also have another question if someone can help me out. All my windows are Low-E Argon glass. It's supposed to keep the UV ray out, so should I leave the sun shine through it without sheer or should I have the windows shaded? I have the shade on the windows not like sheer I have on the living room window but the shade that see through and also block 95% UV ray out.

Thank you in advance for your information and advise.

Tanie

Tanie

This post was edited by Tanie51 on Mon, Oct 13, 14 at 10:15

I grow under LED lights... but yes they are new so not much info is out there... my experience with them is that they put out a fair amount of light and the penetration is deep so keeping them farther away is ok as compared to compact fluors... fluors light rays diminish their radiance fairly quickly as they move away from the bulbs, LED keeps it's intensity more consistentsly, so i've heard... however, they still just aren't as intense as sunlight... Living in an apt, space is limited so i grow in a 10gl aquarium (as well as windowsill, and patio outside, almost all minis), and the LED fixture on 10gl is very close to plants. I can only get the red spottage on high light plants when within 6 inches of fixtures and its a special aquarium light fixture rated as natural light... even for aquatic it's rated as a "medium to low light" fixture for plants... so similarly i wouldn't say LED fixtures in general could be used sufficiently for high light plants. It's worth noting that some of my low light plants look tad stressed from too much light...

Another issue I think may be the case is LED's is they tend to be on the cool side of spectrum which helps growth more than blooms. I use the same fixtures on planted aquariums and algae growth was ridiculous when i first installed, and algae respond more to blue/cool side of spectrum. I've since added LED lights on warm spectrum to my orchid setup to compensate but not long enough to see if things improve yet... however i am getting some red spottage on the few higher light plants, and a slightly different kind of green in leaves indicating that it's broaching high light. In hydroponics lighting there tends to the blue AND red bulbs/color to get cool and warm spectrum evenly.

A note about artificial lights in general, because artificial lights lack intensity of sun to maximize their use you must run them for a long time... some diffused direct sun for 4 hours could be equivalent to say 8 hours artificial light of a higher rating. a general rule is a 12-14 hr light period is equivalent to a 8 hr light period, where, you must realize, light increases gradually to full intensity only at peak hours of day then decrease gradually to sundown... with artificial light you don't get the increase or decrease so the even intensity throughout the period out once again must be compensated for.

With your situation the combination of daylight and the LED lights should work... if only 4 hours of natural daylight, that would hardly be enough for many orchids which come from equatorial regions which get light periods that vary from 10-12 hours everyday varying only slightly year round. But because of LED lights lack of intensity, and because they're higher up, i recommend you try leaving them on at least 8 hours with the natural sunlight. Maybe have them come on after peak sunlight hours meaning sunlight for 4 hours and then LEDs for another 8 hours and see how they respond.

All in all, I'm excited to be using LED's as they are low wattage and don't put out massive heat... I use to grow using a bulky metal halide fixture (which I might add I had great success with despite the pain of using it).

bada

Well the wattage used is mostly relevant to your electric bill but may matter somewhat for your orchids. Full spectrum is a good thing to look for I think. Also lumens might be significant too. Wattage was very signigicant when people were using older technology.

Thank you Bada,

I am home and observing the sunlight in my little sun room today. So far, up to now, the sunlight has been shines in since 9 o'clock. It's patchy though, not sun straight but it's very bright even where it has no direct sunlight. I'll know by the end of the day how many hours and yes, I'll add the LED light to them as soon as the sun is not in the room. When I go back to work next day, I'll have it auto set from early morning to night + sunlight as you said, hopefully that will do especially for my mini catts and dendro and onci.

Tanie

Tanie,

I have a couple of LED set-ups.

I use 4/120 watt equivalents (27 watts each I think) flood light bulbs that put out @1400 lumens each. These can not be kept at 6" above the plants, IMO and in my experience they would burn a vanda at that distance.

I also use 2 red/blue/orange 90 watt LED (really big, bright and horrible) and I burnt a mature catt with these at I buy to the highest lumens I can find, which usually equates to the largest wattage also.

I think you can keep the 60 watt equivalent (7-10 watts?) pretty close to the tops of the plants.

Good luck,

Bob

Hi Bob,

I have been fussing around with these plants and lights all day long. Poor plants, I moved from this to that all day. Anyways, now this is how I have it and I hope I don't burn them but instead make all of them happy. Since the ceiling lights are too higher up and at the moment I don't have anything to lift the plants up closer than what I have. I set up another octopus light. It has 5 lights all together. So I mixed 2 LED lights which I put them close to my mini catts, the other 3 called micro-mini CFL I put them where the Dendro, Nelly Isler and 2 Oncidiums are. In the link Arthur sent me, it says that catts want more concentrate and closer to light so that's what I did! Whew! I set the light from 5 am to 9 pm straight, that will including the natural sunlight about 3.5 hours. I hope that will do? Do you know anything about the Low-E Argon glass window? I put out a question above but have no one answered yet.

Thank you Bob, Bada Cooper and Arthur.

Bob, The LED is 60 watt. Energy used equivalent with 10 watt and gives out 950 lumens.

Tanie.

This post was edited by Tanie51 on Mon, Oct 13, 14 at 18:19

I forgot to tell you the distance from lights to plants. The LED lights are about 6,7" to the tips of mini catts and the CFL lights are almost the same distance to Oncidium, Nelly and Dendro. Is that okay or too close Bob?

Thank you,

Tanie

Here's how I like it just to give you some ideas.

Hi Cooper, that looks lot further from the plants compared with mine. Here's mine. May be it might be better for me to keep the original plan after all? around 20 - 25" above?

Thank you,

Tanie

Oh, that's a pretty setup see I don't really consider mine as a growlight. I just think of it as a supplement that's why it's so far away. Plus I didn't really try growing orchids before but I liked the wild ones. I want to get LED lights and a nice lamp like that.

Thank you for your compliment. But the most important thing is if that's what the orchids want? I moved the lights up a bit and tonight is the first night. I'll give it a couple of days if I see the sign of burn, then I'll probably go back to the ceiling light or will find another way to put them a bit lower. I also will wait to see what Bob will say too.

Tanie

Tanie,

With the lower wattage bulbs, I think 6-7" is fine, Just watch them closely to see if they start to discolor. If they start to look bleached out or 'splotchy', move 'em back a few inches.

Good luck,

Bob

Thank you Bob!

Tanie

Hi Tanie,
There will not very much gain in using white leds instead of powersaving bulbs, a 10Watt led emits nearly the same amount of heat as a 10watt powersaving bulb. The only way to go with leds is using grow leds (blue + red) they come pretty cheap on Ebay 9 -> 10 dollar. see this link:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_from=R40&LH_BIN=1&_nkw=126+led+grow&rt=nc&LH_FS=1
I live in Holland also nearly 52 degrees North, but not so cold and the days are very short now about 9 hours.
A lot of information about led lighting can be found with google Mari juna nurseries are using those with very promising results.
Alfred.
I really like Galgary, so near to the Rockies.

Thank you Alfred,

I guess I'll have to change the bulbs then. At the moment, I alternate the bulbs. One LED 1 fluorescent between the octopus lamp (5 bulbs) and the 3 bulbs on the ceiling lights. Together they are very bright in the room though.
Have you every been to Rocky Mountains close to Calgary? Very beautiful, great for hiking in summer time. Not this weekend though. It's a lot of snow for last 2 days and cold!! Imagine just last weekend we were on the mountain and this weekend -12 oC outside.

Tanie

Hi Tanie,
Those grow leds give a reddish purple light not nice for your living room, but great for your plants. It looks like they are not that bright but our eyes are not so sensitive for those colors. My suggestion is to combine some grow lights with one (or more) white led to make the light more nice for the human eye. I build the grow light myself so I can tune the ratio of blue to red, blue is more for growing and red for flowering.
The days are short at the moment and some are cloudy so 12-> 14 hours artificial light is a great help for your plants to stay healthy.
And yes I have been hiking in your neighborhood. Up Ha ling peak, Mt Rundlle, and peaks in the Kananaskis, Banf, Jasper , Yoho, Kootenay, Glacier (Rogers Pass) and Robson park, made even the hike up to Berglake (about 40km up and back) in one day, I did only day hikes. The highest hike was up Mt Sunwapta (3300 m) air become pretty thin for a Dutchman but I made it
Greetings and Success with your orchids

This post was edited by scorpio_bafh on Wed, Nov 12, 14 at 6:11

Greetings from the prairies! I've grown under LEDs for about 4 years...made em myself by copying the reef keeper hobbyists, before these fancy ones came onto the market. Love them! Get a light meter - wattages don't mean anything. However, note that lots of plants will grow under less light than recommended (that 2000fc for cattleyas is ridiculous if applied to indoor lights run at 12 hours a day)

Hi Calvin,
Do you still use the leds from four years back or did you make new fixtures with the modern ones. In four years the leds have taken big steps in efficiency and power. I use arrays of 1 and 3 watt star power leds mounted on aluminum strips. Another big advantage of homemade led light is you can make it easy dimmable so I can change the ratio of red to blue light, more red for blooming, more blue for growing. A luxmeter will be great but keep in your mind that those are corrected for how humans see the intensity of light (sensitive for green) plants have other ideas, they love red and blue.
Greetings Alfred

Hi Alfred,

I over-estimated - it's more like 2.5 years. I use the XPG-cree stars mounted on heat sinks. I think those were pretty good back then, although I know there are newer better versions now...time to go shopping!

I use the neutral and warm white bin LEDs..I just can't stand the blue / red. I'm sure the plants would be doing better under those though!

Hi Calvin
Those Cree star leds are great, there has been maybe some improvement in the last two years but not the big leap from 4 years ago to the moment. I use 660nm leds mixed with cool white and a few grow blue 430-440nm. Those way the light is not so horrible as only red and blue.
I had ordered 15 watt 126 led grow light on Ebay and took them apart and want to build a fixture with those part and added cool white leds to make the light more nice for human eyes
Greetings Alfred

I just used CFL's during winter. But, I had very large windows which faced SW and the room was very bright. I had the octopus lamps on timers to turn on at 5pm and I ran them 18hrs.

LED's were not around then. I did use a couple of grow lights (can't remember the names but they looked like floods) in a small room with no natural light. I only used that room for the warm growers.

I could flower most of my plants under CFL's but I also had a lot of natural light during the day. The most important thing is to 'summer' your plants outside for as long as possible.

Jane
This was the warm room, no natural light. Just CFLS
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I bloomed this Twinkle under a desk lamp with a CFL
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You can see these plants got lots of SW light all day.
CFL's at night
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Jane,

I thought we need to let them go "sleep" during the night? So how does this work, they have sun light during the day and CFL light at night? These are plants when you were in NY, right? Could you please tell me, because I set my octopus light at 5am and shut off at 8:30pm.

Thank you,

Tanie