# Understand synthetic lighting



## Arachninja (Jul 28, 2012)

Her is a short overview on lighting, there is red light and blue light rays.  In spring you recieve more blue light rays from the sun, also the higher the number of (I wanna say BTU's is blue like 6500 and up.  Or in flourescent bulbs its called daylight bulbs, and a noticably blue coloration is seen when one looks at these. They are good for green vegatative growth but do little for flowering.  In the fall more red rays penetrate and the days shorten hence some species of plants bloom,  red helps to induce or help flowering.  A white light bulb is in the middle around the 5,ooo range or so and red down around 3,ooo BTU's.  For a common pothos ivy and many low light housplants all needed is a simple, not to large blue bulb.  Though floourescent puts off little heat and a big bulb wont usually hurt.  Ppothos in particular is very hardy and adapts to many enviroments ( I have used underwater in fish aquariums), so with it you cant go wrong.  Though if you wish to use more luxuriant foliage with flowers say a bromeliad or orchid you will need some red light in the mix.  I like the combinantion of one blue bulb and one red anyways as it helps keep a good balance.  These are just some fundamentals here and I will try to answer any questions to help anyone wanting more in depth knowledge on artificial lighting.  Now as for outside Direct sunlight even trough a window will kill or can burn just by the light not mwntioning heat.  Also plants can adapt their leaves to accept different levels of light so a slow integration starting with a hour or two and slowly raising the time of the intervals is the way to go, so the leaves can change from either shade leaves or sun leaves.


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## Tarac (Aug 17, 2012)

http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Lighting.html

Everything you need to know and then some.  It's much more then just the temperature of the light (kelvin rating).  For many applications you don't even need to know this though, just "white and bright" will do.  What you are trying to achieve will dictate how much of this you should read.  Anyone trying to grow carnivorous plants indoors should definitely read the whole thing as they are (generally) full sun, all day kind of plants in their native condition.


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## Stan Schultz (Aug 17, 2012)

Arachninja said:


> Her is a short overview on lighting, there is red light and blue light rays. ...


While I don't agree with a lot of what you say I'm not going to hijack your thread or debate the issue with you. We've crossed swords enough elsewhere

:biggrin:

Instead, I'm going to open *my own thread* so as not to compete.


Cheers,


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## josh_r (Aug 17, 2012)

I think someone needs to go back to lighting school.....


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