Best Growlights for DIY Hydroponics on a Budget

Here is my opinion on what grow lights you should use as a beginner, ever some pros. This is what I use to grow microgreens and baby greens. I even grow full bunches of lettuce, basil and mint.
I just sent some in and will send more next week.

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[midnightgrower]

I bought a $15 hyper tough 5500 lumen led shop light from Walmart for my indoor tomato plant back in January it's still working and she's flowering and filling up her cage now. Worked great for micro greens, seedlings, and the adult tomatoes so far. Would definitely recommend for those on a micro budget.

[Scirvir]

Just found this channel a few days ago and it's quickly becoming one of my favorites on YouTube. So helpful!
It's amazing how it has grown so much over time (just like a plant lol)

Also, that drip is fire! Pretty cool

[Junzar]

I wish Brad kept making the hidden harvest lights. I have 3 of them- love them. Now, I have have to look at what I am growing- for seedlings and leafy greens you can use bright daylight shop lights. For fruiting plants you need full spectrum. For a lot of my seedlings.. I bring them out during the day, bring them in at night.

[TeacherMom]

Cool glasses -- I love the outfit! 😎
GrowLights have been the most expensive & troublesome investment so far, in terms of indoor growing. My family is big & our growing season is short. Growing vegetables indoors can mean the difference between my family having access to salad throughout the winter or not. House windows filter UV light to protect humans. Greenhouse windows allow UV light to pass through to help plants grow... I've been researching growlights for a while now but am still unsure about which lights are the most effective & reasonably priced. Thanks for another great video, Mike! 🙂

[frankiet.wankumesq.]

Love the outfit.. looks like you just walked off the set of "Book of Eli".

[SherryBrubakerPollock]

I'm looking forward to seeing how well the fan-shaped lights work for you. I've been needing something smaller than the traditional grow lights I've looked at.

[goodgoat]

Every plant has a DLI which tells how much light the plant requires to grow healthily to maturity. Lettuce and other greens have low light requirements and can be grown under a typical LED shop light lit for 16 hours a day. I start my seedlings under three 48" LED shop lights, 40 watts each, putting out 4500 lumens each, with a color temperature of 4500 K, on each shelf of a standard 18" x 48" stainless steel rack. This is great for seedlings and slight overkill for microgreens but I did have cucumbers flowering under this setup prior to putting them in the ground. Flowering and fruiting plants need significantly more light and to be successful a higher power grow light is required. What matters is how many photons of the ideal spectrum reach the plant. Not many of us will spend $250-$500 on an Apogee meter to measure photons / PAR, so REAL lamp "at the wall" wattage is a somewhat usable measurement. Older individual white LEDs put out 50-100 lumens per watt of electricity while the newer LEDs put out 175-200 lumens per watt. The higher end LED grow lamps brag about efficient Samsung 301 LEDs. DO NOT BUY red/blue "blurple" lamps, the spectrum is incomplete and it's hard to see problems under this light. DO NOT BUY LED grow lamps with fans, fans ALWAYS eventually fail and the lamp will fry itself. For fruiting vegetables like tomatoes & cukes, I would buy nothing less than a name brand, at least, 100 watt (watts consumed at the wall) LED lamp, sized to fit the grow area, and put on a timer for up to 20 hours a day. There is much more to say about LED grow lamps.

[mcnallylee]

Thanks - that's a great idea for lighting. Love the steampunk!

[flintwithers]

I love growing and I am cheap. Perfect channel for me!

[lunabeta]

I received my bags of nutrients today and im off to learning . Not today cuz it's Easter but soon. I'm so excited!

[thedad]

Glad to see you’re doing this. I came up with the same idea. Got those fan lights from Costco, $20 each (Canada), gr8 return policy if they stink. Then I plug them into a patio light string, so only have one electrical cord. I can also snake the sockets wherever I need depending on the plants. You have to watch the max wattage the patio light string can take but otherwise works gr8. Only have 3 fan bulbs at the moment and plants seem to be pretty happy. Obviously a small set up.

[wybuchowyukomendant]

I got 2 Chinese led panels, both draw 30wats, everybody was saying how bad those are, and... well, my hydro pak choy grows like a charm under them lol

[yangtse]

I only use light to raise seedlings and small plants, so I bought a cheap 4000k (pleasant coolish white) 12 volt strip on Ebay for approx £3, chopped it to suit my area, approx 2 feet by one, hot-glued it to a simple wooden frame and soldered bus bars in the centre to minimise resistive losses. Draws approx 50 watts from a junk box PSU.
Not super-efficient but does the job.

[OPAIK]

thanks for the simplistic video brother. I am in the process of building a aquaponics system. Cheers home dog

[latriciacagle]

I just ordered the two pack of lights. Looking forward to trying them out. I hope they will replace some of my other lights with the red/blue LED’s. I prefer the full spectrum as I have seen better results.

[TNBushcrafter]

I'm with ya bud, dang shame Brad had to close down shop. I won one of his early giveaways when he was around 100 subscribers. Then bought some later on. I have a couple 2' LED grow light strips from Lowe's. They do pretty well. Not extremely bright but greens and herbs have always grown just fine under them. They are about the same color as the Hidden Harvest lights. I believe they are around 35 each. They have them in the lighting department. The retrofit LED's are a little more involved as the ballasts have to be disconnected. A 10 min swap for us electricians but some people have a huge fear of electrical. Have a great week Michael. TC and ATB, Cris.

[KomekoroKoa]

I’m super excited to see how these work - if they do work well, I could switch from my 3x3 table to the bucket tower system in the same place and grow even more plants because I could have even light all up and down the towers.

[Emeraldwitch]

I saw those lights at our local big box home improvement store on black Friday and almost grabbed a couple. $9.99 each. I honestly can't remember if it was 4 or 5 fins but I was thinking of hanging them over my citrus Grove (I have 3 various small potted citrus and a banana and 2 figs lol) just so they get more than the window light.
Menards occasionally sells left over black Fridays stuff this time of the year at the same prices to move it out. I might grab one or 2 and hang thrm over the Grove to see if they thrive rather than just survive til spring when they all go outside again

[afshirinzadeh]

Love the steam punk, Mike! Thanks for all!

[lostinspace]

I bought two of these lights and they are very bright! I did put one on my indoor radish plants and it turned the leaves orange and red. guess I got the light too close and burned them. so at least a foot or two away from the tops of the plants might be a good place to start.