Get rid of your shop lights and get some real lighting! Look into a 150 watt sun system HPS light which you should be able to get for 50 or 60 bucks if you hunt around abit. Or rig up a couple hundred watts in cfl daylight 6500k bulbs. Also look up a 125 watt hydrofarm fluorwing and get some better penetration into your plants!

Get rid of your shop lights and get some real lighting! Look into a 150 watt sun system HPS light which you should be able to get for 50 or 60 bucks if you hunt around abit. Or rig up a couple hundred watts in cfl daylight 6500k bulbs. Also look up a 125 watt hydrofarm fluorwing and get some better penetration into your plants!

How about a high output T-5.....would this be good? This is what I am looking at:

"Propagate your seedlings effectively with a high output fluorescent light made for plant propagation. 20,000 total lumens in the blue spectrum is perfect for propagating seedlings, clones, or keeping plants happy year round. At 5,000 lumens and 54 watts per bulb, the high output T-5 boasts itself as the strongest fluorescent lighting around."

I've been quite successful with red robins grown under florescent lights. I have a mix but currently they're under a 3 lamp t8 fixture with a little supplemental lighting from CFLs in brooder lamps

So I've been reading different info online.

I currently use one blue (cool) and one red (warm) T5 CFLs to start seedlings indoors... it has worked okay... but some things I've been reading suggest using two cool bulbs since that's the better light... as opposed to the red spectrum(?). Should I switch over to two blues on each shoplight instead? Thanks!

kawaiineko_gardener(5a): "I also know there are high pressure sodium lights, which I'd like to avoid using; the setup just sounds too difficult and complicated for me to do indoors at my house; you need special fixtures for high pressure sodium which would be difficult for me to find and set up."

For that capricious self imposed constraint, you will be spending much more on electricity. It is very easy to buy HPS bulbs, ballasts and sockets online. You might have a 10' x 10' room with the walls, ceiling and floor painted white with a 1000 watt HPS bulb without reflector at the center of the ceiling. It would be better but unnecessary to also include a 400 watt MH bulb.

urban_will: "Should I switch over to two blues on each shoplight instead?"

The most important reason to include blue light is that it helps plants develop pigments that protect them from sunburn when planted outdoors. Another reason to include blue light is that, along with red (as opposed to far red) it helps de-etiolate plants, i.e., makes the stems shorter. But, blue light is less photosynthetically active than red light therefore, if you have no problem with sunburn or long stems, it would be counterproductive to increase the blue light.

Incidentally, you should realize that there is the least justification for including green light because it is less photosynthetically active than red or blue light and it plays no role in photomorphogenesis. Most modern fluorescent bulbs contain a mixture of three phosphors, one for red, one for green and one for blue. It costs a manufacturer almost nothing to replace the green phosphor with more red and/or blue phosphor, thereby replacing the green light with more red and/or blue light, But, in the few cases in which this has been done, the manufacturer charges a much higher price than for a white triphosphor bulb. The typical price for a single phosphor red or blue 54 watt T5 bulb is about $20, whereas the price of its white counterpart is about $3. And, because of this price gouging, people like you are inappropriately calling cool white "blue" and warm white "red".

Для помидоров, на мой взгляд, лучшее использование светодиодного освещения.
Я делаю установку для выращивания высоких помидоры с августа по май.
Мощность 120 Вт., Вертикальный освещение.
После того, как сделали, я покажу фотографии.
После того, как сделали, я покажу фотографии.