Good idea or Bad idea?

Discussion in 'Grow Room Design/Setup' started by ericjbsmokes, May 17, 2015.

  1. Hey guys, so here's the deal. I have 18 germinated seeds planted in solo cups filled with FFOF soil. they are sitting in a litter box to catch any water that leaks out the bottoms of the cups.
     
    My lighting set up for this stage of the plants is:
    a power strip with 9 bulbs total plugged into it.
    8 - 23W 1550 lumen 5000K
    1 - 40W 2500 lumen  5500K
     
    a total of ~ 14,900 lumens 
     
    At first i just had the bulbs plugged into the strip with nothing keeping the light from escaping upwards, so i added a small shroud around the strip made out of aluminum foil.
     
    This is where my question comes in on whether this is a good or bad idea:
     
    There was still a lot of light escaping the litter box area so i decided to just add more foil around the whole litter box and tucked it into the inside of the litter box to kind of make a dome so almost no light escapes. 
    I have a fan blowing directly on the light bulbs and over the tops of the cups to keep the temp down so i don't burn the little seedlings and it seems to be working quite well (its really not hot at all)
     
    So now for the pics:
    IMG_2819.jpg
    this is what it looks like from the outside
     
    IMG_2822.jpg
    This kind of lets you know how far away from the cups the lights are, one set of lights is a little closer than the rest, due to the fact that theres an extra Y splitter on that one.
     
    IMG_2823.jpg
    and here's the cups. This picture gives a better idea of how bright it actually is inside the dome.
     
    IMG_2824.jpg
    and last but not least - a seedling that sprouted!
    If you look to the cup on the right, you can see another little sprout coming up (does this look normal?)
     
     
    Thanks for looking guys, please let me know what you think and leave any suggestions or tips please! thanks!

     

    Attached Files:

  2. It is a good idea to let your light reflect more to your plants, but I don't think alminium foil is a good solution for it. It will work a little bit, but it can create hotspots which can burn your plants. Maybe its an idea to buy a reflective hood or make your own with mylar?
    You also don't need that amount of light for seedlings, they can't absorb so much light when they are that small.
     
  3. i took what you said into consideration and decided it would be easiest to just spray paint the inside of the aluminum foil reflector flat white.
     
  4.  
    Yes thats also a good solution :)
     

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