Diffusers? They're used to diffuse the light. I know, it took me years of research to discover that, but that's what I'm good at. We want our rooms to be fully and evenly illuminated so we design light fittings to spread the light out.

For plants, we need the light to be concentrated onto a small area to achieve the necessary intensity. And ideally also to provide a collimated beam of light to achieve good penetration on taller plants. This is the opposite of what a diffuser does, so throw away the diffuser and use some sort of reflector system to keep the light where you need it.

There are many kinds of diffusers.

1. In general they are used to hide the bare tubes because they are glary to the eyes.
2. They can prevent the tubes from falling.
3. For office use, some are designed to prevent side spill to minimize glare and reflection on computer screens.

All diffusers cut down light output. Best to remove them for growing plants.

dcarch

Thanks for the input, like I said I always have removed them, just wanted to make sure there wasnt something I was missing on the topic.