Why spend all that money when plain old florescent shop lights will do? I've done that for years with one cool and one warm bulb. Make sure you keep your plants directly under the lights with maybe 1-2" clearance.

Cheryl

Don't waste your $$ on expensive lights for seed starting...

Home Depot has inexpensive fluorescent shop lights with electronic ballasts for $8-ish. I'd suggest the F32T8 type bulbs, that's the 1", they are more efficient then the older F40T12 1.5" ones. The lights even have holes on the top to hang them with.

For peppers, cool white bulbs will work fine...mix warm & cool white if you want more spectrum...or get the Daylight bulbs in the F40T12 size...I havent tried those yet.

I have 5 of these on chains over my 2x4' seed starting area with various bulbs in them....everything from reddish grow-lights ($$-before I knew better) to bluish daylight aquarium bulbs (which I bought cheap). I grow mostly peppers, tomatoes and marigolds. So far the only thing that has been picky was an amaryllis we grew last month, which kept angling for the grow-lights.

Under the lights I was able to get Long Slim Cayenne to fruit fairly well, but they never turned red....but I'll take green Cayennes in Ohio in winter anyday!

--Don

I completely agree with the comments above. For starting seedlings, inexpensive shop flourescent fixtures are fine with cool bulbs (I seem to remember that cool throw more lumens than warm). Keep the bulbs 1-2" above the tops of the plants I have had excellent results with a very modest cash outlay. I believe I spent $12 per dual bulb fixture.

If you want to finish them indoors you will need to get fancy and buy some serious lighting (big $$$).

My husband also has for quite awhile used the shop lights w/ fluorescent bulbs to grow his chile. He hangs them on adjustable chains from the vigas so they can be raised as the plants grow. He also has used aluminum foil around the lights to form a 'cage or tent-like' enclosure that also reflects the light on the plants below and helps keep some heat on them as they now have been moved to the garage. He has always used the Park's sponges & has just transplanted them to individual styrofoam cups (120 of them!)where they will stay until he transplants them into the garden. My tomato plants get started from seed in March & will share the lights!

Dollar for dollar the best germination investment I have ever made is a proper root heating mat. My strike rate for seeds became unbelievable the day I started using bottom heat for seeds. My only caution is that you have to carefully watch the watering as your pots/beds can dry out very quickly and depending on the wattage of the mat you may wish to raise your beds off the mat using cardboard or pieces of woods as some mats can get too warm for the seedlings. A cheap $16 CDN double fluorescent tube fixture a few inches away from the seedlings is all you will ever need for lighting - invest in the grow mat.

I am just about to set up a large grow light system (1000W MH) that will fill a whole room in my house. My primary needs are for my larger sub-tropicals and tropicals and I may toss some peppers into my new grow room so I can get a jump on summer. That size of system is definitely the serious growers way to go for established plants but not for seedlings (too much light). I would not recommend such a system to people unless you are really frustrated with your plant selection because they need a longer growing season than you are living in. In my case many of my tropicals are just starting to bud when the September cool rains hit. If you are really keen on extending your growing season and want tons of plants jump starting summer be forewarned that the cost for a proper CSA/UL 1000W grow light system is $300-400 and the energy costs are $100-$300 depending on your area and light cycle. However if you are mad keen on tropical type plants (I am into plumaria, passionfruit, dragon fruit, etc.) and you live in a below freezing winter area like I do (Westcoast Canada - 8a)then it is a necessary evil.

1000 watt system will raise your electric bill by about 33%. But... lowers the heating bill a little, they are HOT. Can get a closed room 110+ degrees.

My rig consists of a 5 section shelf with shop lights hung from 2-3 levels of the shelf, a heating pad (will get another one this year) like you find at the pharmacy section. A cheap one will do. This helps keep the soil temp up. A timer or two for the shop lights and the heating pads. A good size spray bottle to water lightly from above. A small cheap thermometer I use a kitchen thermometer. To keep an eye on the soil temp. I try to keep my temp in the 80's durring the early germination/sprouting period. That's pretty much my setup for now.

Some things I have learned along the way is that when packing the seed starting trays don't be afraid to pack the seed starting mix tight. Last year I packed my 72 cell tray semi-loose then later started a new set of seeds in two of those plastic ground beef containters (washed out good of course). In one tray (the one the seeds would be in) I poked a series of holes in the bottom for wattering. Then put the mix and seeds in and covered the top with plastic wrap and poked some holes for ventalation. Then I filled the other tray part way with water. Put both trays together so the water wick up into the upper tray. Then put both on the heating pad. Long story short the diference I noticed between the two groups the 72 cell tray packed lightly and the ground beef tray packed tightly. I had almost no instance of the seedlings sprouting with the husk still attatched to the leaves as opposed to the 72 cell tray where many many seedlings sprouted with the husks till covering the leaves. The germination rate also seemed higher.

I found that I will now only start 1 seed per cell. Separating multiple seedlings with intertwined roots is a headache I'd much rather avoid.

Also I will have 1 or 2 shelves dedicated to germination/sprouting only. once the seedlings are strong enough I will relocate them to a different shelf. I'm still working out how exactly I'm going to go about it. The goal is to make the most of heating pad and rather than have some a mixture of seedlings and seeds that haven't sprouted yet to have them separated. Possibly making room to reuse that same tray to start more seeds. I could then track and arange flats based on variety and quantity of healthy seedlings rather than have dead cells mixed with healthy seedlings.