Anyone have experience with grow lights

I stopped growing bud due to legality issues years ago but I’ve been growing a different variety of plants since, mostly medicinal plants from South America and other countries that require high humidity such as P. viridis, cappi, kratom. I also have cacti such as San Pedro but not inside the terrarium.

I recently built a new terrarium, tried to upgrade my light but failed miserably. I was using an old pro grow 240 burple, with an even older burple LED panel from HTG. I’ve always been able to damn near hug my plants with these lights from micro grows to terrariums. The humidity in the terrarium eventually kills the fans in the led lights so this time I wanted to try a fanless adjustable light with a sink. After all these years of growing bud I really started to hate the burple color and missed the full spectrum of HPS MH and T5’s.

I recently purchased a vipra spectra XS2000. The instructions say 18” from canopy. The light was set at 25%, 16hr light cycle and set 18” to 42” away from the plant depending on the plant variety. All of the plants showed signs of light burn, the taller the worse they burned.

Most of these plants require partial sun but some do flower and I’d like to be able to provide enough light for them to flower.

This lights is the shit compared to previous LED’s but it’s way too intense. Plant space of the grow space of the terrarium is 5’x5’x 2.5’.

Does anyone have a recommendation on a full spectrum LED light for a terrarium this size? I’m fine with buying 1-3 small lights for adjustability too but preferably no fans.

I’ve also interested in a light diffuser, use of a sun screen, or even flipping the light upside down so it is all reflective light that hits the plants.

I know it’s not a weed grow but it seems the rest of the indoor growing world seems to not know shit about lighting compared to the cannabis community.

I’m open to any questions, recommendations or whatever. Thanks for your time

you do realise that the kratom for one, will have to grow large enough to get enough leaf matter to get a buzz from. so unless your going to grow loads of smaller trees of it, it will have to go outside and survive till it starts produceing enough to be worth while.
im on 29 grams a time, 40 capsules.
lol, heres my kratom station in the kitcheni would use an outdoor wether proof bulkhead to grow with, or your asking for trouble with high humidity and electricity.
and use a mixed sodium/mh bulb if useing high intencity discharge (HID) lamps.
the newer leds are full spectrum and will serve you well, as long as there water proof. i cant stress that enough. the lights for terrariums for plants and reptiles, all have enclosed lighting, behind glass, so double protection

I use to grow my own and have a lighting question myself . I used a 1000 watt hps for about ten year and got pretty good . I had to take a break in 2017 , because I had to , not because I wanted to . Back then led lights were no good but I've read they've came along way. Today , do the pro's use hps or LED's and if so what is the best light money can buy?

Sorry for jacking your thread!

go go kid said:

you do realise that the kratom for one, will have to grow large enough to get enough leaf matter to get a buzz from. so unless your going to grow loads of smaller trees of it, it will have to go outside and survive till it starts produceing enough to be worth while.
im on 29 grams a time, 40 capsules.
lol, heres my kratom station in the kitcheni would use an outdoor wether proof bulkhead to grow with, or your asking for trouble with high humidity and electricity.
and use a mixed sodium/mh bulb if useing high intencity discharge (HID) lamps.
the newer leds are full spectrum and will serve you well, as long as there water proof. i cant stress that enough. the lights for terrariums for plants and reptiles, all have enclosed lighting, behind glass, so double protection

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My humidity isn’t anything too crazy but compared to indoor cannabis RH at 65% up there, especially for flowering.

I’ve grown kratom for almost ten years. Never tried to harvest it. I’d have to focus on it a lot and dial in some stress factors to produce good alkaloids. It was a gift.
Under my old pro grow LED light I could keep the light about 16” away without burning the leaves and the nodes would be lol e 1cm apart. It was indoors under LED’s so I had to Bonzi it, it was strong and looked like a cannabis mother with all the shoots. I bet if put out side in the right climate it would stretch out and blow up though. A few mothers mother kratom trees would give you a nice little harvest.

Yet has been my third terrarium and have had no problems with the humidity and electrical… yet. My first terrarium was a cheap 6’x6’ greenhouse indoors and it just kept escalating.
The kratom trees I’ve had never liked direct intense light and I’d imagine HPS would be the way to go if your growing trees. I’d think MH would stretch them out too much.

I’m less in it for the harvest and more in it for carrying in the genetics. My new terrarium is more of a display case, got sick of idiots asking if I’m growing weed in the tent because it was partially see through.

I’m thinking of cutting a hole on top of the terrarium and covering the hole with clear/whilst polycarbonate. In theory it should defuse the light better, keep light humidity away from light and allow for more grow room too.

Boo1965 said:

I use to grow my own and have a lighting question myself . I used a 1000 watt hps for about ten year and got pretty good . I had to take a break in 2017 , because I had to , not because I wanted to . Back then led lights were no good but I've read they've came along way. Today , do the pro's use hps or LED's and if so what is the best light money can buy?

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I think the “pros” use both. I wouldn’t call myself a professional but for several years I grew bud for my main source of income and I always used a variety of light for different scenarios. The pro grow was great for a micro grow cabinet with 2 week veg after cones in a Aero cloner. T5 worked great for clones but I personally never tried to flower under the T5’s. I’m my prime I found stacking two vertical 600w hps the best light for flowering and I preferred LED’s for clones.

My pro grow was an obvious step foward from the original LED’s but i guarantee this new full spectrum xs2000 by vipar spectra would grow some great bud. I’m blown away by the intensity and the depth of radiation. I’d be willing to bet it would put grow my past 400w HPS. Not sure about a 600w. I’ve just never seen LED’s that can penetrate radiation this far without magnification. They’ve definitely changed the industry in the past few years. You gotta have the right diodes, spectrum, and board for what your grow requires though.

edit:in my opinion there isn’t a one best thing. It’s how the crepe factors work together. Similar to an engine. If you change the cam you’ll not see a benefit unless you correct the timing and compensate for the compression. We’re always trying make the weakest link run better to improve the entire scenario. Growing is all about triggering different growth mechanism at the appropriate timing for the result you want.

wow, i must try growing some, ill try putting them outside and see if anything comes of them, probably die first year, but you never know, they might do something, that would be cool colleting enough leaves to get hit off of them, if you can call it a hit, its something and nothing to me, its odd,
where did you get seeds from?

go go kid said:

wow, i must try growing some, ill try putting them outside and see if anything comes of them, probably die first year, but you never know, they might do something, that would be cool colleting enough leaves to get hit off of them, if you can call it a hit, its something and nothing to me, its odd,
where did you get seeds from?

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Which Seeds? Sorry, I’ve got a variety of plants? If you’re referencing kratom seeds, I recommend to skip the seeds and order a cutting.

I grow some plants inside of a terrarium so I’m I’m crazy about about what I could be introducing into the environment from fungus gnats to scale bugs or whatever. I quarantine plants for a while, I’ve rinsed them, scrubbed them, cloned them. I pretty much always repot them in one way or another because of the higher humidity raises the chance of root rot in dense soils and I fear a random infestation.

I’ve used a few vendors over the years. A trusted vendor is world seed supply (wss). Kinda a pain to purchase from them because of regulations, I was hesitant to buy from themat first because I had to use a money order or wire transfer and I had read mixed reviews. They sent me what I ordered and more. After that I said screw the hassle of a money order and I just sent cash in an envelope, let them keep the change lol. I’ve been able to pay cash 4 times since, just be sure to put the order information they give you too. Turns out everyone likes cash, I could care less is they evade taxes or not. Just takes a little trust.

Not to pump another forum but, I’d recommend share the seed. STS is full of good people and after bringing some of your skills and info into the community they have a great seed share where you can trade seeds, cuttings or whatever all over the world. You’d be surprised of the plant genetics that some people desire and chances are you probably live local to a species others can’t find, you just don’t have interest in that species.

Even the shit state of IL is known for a DMT containing plant called the Illinois bundle weed haha

More in line to my main topic. I’m still looking for a full spectrum led light recommendation that’s not too intense.
these plants don’t like direct light and it’s difficult to provide the correct spectrum without it being direct.

I thought about framing and hanging layers of window screen under the grow light to filter some of the intensity?

My other idea is to use a sheet of greenhouse plastic such as polycarbonate. Maybe start with 4 laggers of clear plastic under the light, then remove a layer each week depending on the reaction?

That light really burned the hell out of my plants though. Thought I’d lost the whole terrarium. They’re just now starting to grow back after losing almost all of their leaves. Surprisingly the kratom plants were the first to grow leaves back. The plants have been bonsi’d for years so they’ve got a strong root base.

For an enclosure that size, I'd probably stick to T5's.

I recently bought a "TGL star 60 LED" for my growspace which is about half the size of that and the plants seems to be loving it. It's passively cooled and does not seem to get very hot. Might be worth checking out.

Why not get a couple different CFL in there? 3200k and 6500k? Hard to burn anything with them, even the 125 watt ones.