You can start seeds under almost any fluorescent tube. Get cool whites, look for something that produces more than 80 lumens per watt. Tomatoes start to get tricky when they get tall, but until then a fluorescent tube an inch or two from the top of the seedlings is fine.

When you say you want something bigger than the P&A, I'm not sure I understand. The Philips Plant & Aquarium is commonly sold as a 48" straight tube. That might be a bit overkill for one (maybe two) trays of tomato seeds. Are you looking at something else?

If you might never use the bulbs again, get a couple of 25W, or maybe even 42W, compact fluorescent (spiral bulbs) from a box store. No ballasts, no starters, just plug it into a lamp holder and go. It will easily last you a single growing season. You should rig up some form of white or shiny baffle above the bulbs to direct light downwards.

Straight tubes produce more light (for the same power), last longer, are available in a wider array of types (such as the P&A types which are hard to find in compact fluorescents), but they are four feet long and you have to invest in the shoplights to start.

Whatever you use, you will have to get your plants into the sun when they start shooting up past a foot tall, or rig up something more sophisticated than a shoplight above the tray.

You are awesome! This is exactly what I was looking for!!! I just need something to get them started, then I can bring them inside and outside when the days get warmer and longer. I just wanted a jump on our (short) growing season here.

The Philips I have seen are only 18 inches in length. I will look around town more though. I will also check into the other bulbs mention. I, or I should say my husband, has a couple of those hanging shoplights. I know he won't mind donating one towards "the cause". he enjoys the Marinara sauce I can with the tomatoes.

Once again - Thank you! This info will get me started :-)

Diana MT

Home Depot usually carries Philips P&A bulbs in 24" and 48" at least in my area. I've never seen them in 18" here.

Just to warn you, the P&A tubes are a bit more expensive than the cool whites. Since you're not growing tomatoes indoors year-round, you can get away with using cheaper cool white tubes, as Shrubs suggested.

>>Straight tubes produce more light (for the same power), last longer, are available in a wider array of types (such as the P&A types which are hard to find in compact fluorescents), but they are four feet long and you have to invest in the shoplights to start. I will have to disagree with this, unfortunately. I have a terrarium that is currently lit by 2 85W CFL bulbs. It is much, much brighter than when I used 4 80W tubes. My plants thank me kindly for it as well as they finally grow and bloom profusely.

D.

Again? OK, this will be my last post on the issue. I'm tired of arguing. For any compact fluorescent you can show me, I can show you a straight tube of the same or lower power that produces more lumens. OK? That's what I mean when I say that "straight tubes produce more light (for the same power)". If you want to compare your spanking new high output triphosphor PL compact on an electronic ballast with a ten-year-old halophosphate T12 design on a magnetic ballast, or even with the many less-than-top-notch straight tubes you can still buy today, then feel free. I can also show you a small hatchback that would beat a forumla 1 car from twenty years ago but that doesn't mean I would pick a small hatchback if I wanted the fastest car available.

I'll repeat it for the very last time: straight tubes are the most efficient, up to 100 lumens/W, long high power "twin-tube" (actually a single bent tube) compact fluorescents are next with up to 85 lumens/W, smaller "2-D" low power twin-tube are next at up to 75 lumens/W, and the small domestic spiral compact fluorescents are last at about 65 lumens/W. Obsolete designs, T12s, most anything on a magnetic ballast, many many T8s, lots of halophosphate tubes, anything you have in the basement from ten years ago, and probably more I've missed may be even less efficient.

Well, we'll agree to disagree.

On another subject, here's my favorite pro-street Hatchback, ever:

http://www.supercars.net/garages/ChevyRocks/32v2.html

D.