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May 31

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LED Grow Light for Aquaponics

By Healthnut Bill

May 31, 2013

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The LED Grow Light Is A Nice Addition To Help You Grow An Aquaponics Garden Indoors.

Light emitting diode or LED grow light is a relatively new addition to the choices you now have for providing indoor lighting for your plants if you don’t have a good source of natural sunlight.  They have some really good advantages over many of the other choices such as fluorescent bulbs, metal hydride, or incandescent halogen bulbs.

♦ They operate at a much cooler temperature therefore you don’t need a fan to remove excess heat.

♦  They last up to 10 to 20 times longer than most other light sources.

They consume only about 1/10 as much electricity to power them saving you lots of money in energy costs.

You can somewhat customize your light to the type of plants you grow due to the availability of different wavelength LED’s.

led grow light
Red and Blue Diodes

The one negative I will point out is the initial cost of these lights is considerably higher than most other types, but later in this article, you will see how that can be balanced against savings on other things like energy savings and not needing cooling fans. 

It is also often published that for vegetative growth, blue LED grow lights are preferred.

Here is some of what Wikipedia has to say about the subject.

Recent advancements in LEDs allow production of relatively inexpensive, bright, and long-lasting grow lights that emit only the wavelengths of light corresponding to the absorption peaks of a plant’s typical photochemical processes.

Compared to other types of grow lights, LEDs for indoor plants are attractive because they consume much less electrical power, do not require ballasts, and produce considerably less heat than incandescent or fluorescent lights[citation needed]. This allows LEDs to be placed closer to the plant canopy than other lights. Also, plants under LEDs transpire less, as a result of the reduction in heat, and thus the time between watering cycles is longer.[citation needed]

There are multiple absorption peaks for chlorophyll and carotenoids, and LED grow-lights may use one or more LED colors overlapping these peaks.

Recommendations for optimal LED designs vary widely. According to one source, to maximize plant growth and health using available and affordable LEDs, U.S. patent #6921182 from July 2005 claims that “the proportion of twelve red 660 nm LEDs, plus six orange 612 nm LEDs and one blue 470 nm LED was optimal”, such that the ratio of blue light to red & orange light is 6-8%.

[1]

It is also often published that for vegetative growth, blue LEDs are preferred, where the light has a wavelength somewhere in the mid-400 nm (nanometers). For growing fruits or flowers, a greater proportion of deep-red LEDs is considered preferable, with light very near 660 nm, the exact number this wavelength being much more critical than for the blue LED. Further research has shown that infrared and ultraviolet diodes give a full spectrum needed for flowering plants to effectively grow and flower.[1][citation needed]

Early LED grow lights used hundreds of fractional-watt LEDs and were often not bright enough and/or efficient enough to be effective replacements for HID lights.[citation needed] Newer advanced LED grow lights may use high-brightness multiple-watt LEDs, with growing results similar to HID lights.[citation needed]

Grow light LEDs are increasing in power consumption resulting in increased effectiveness of the technology. LEDs used in previous designs were 1 watt in power. However, 3-watt and even 5-watt LEDs are now commonly used in LED grow lights. LED grow lights are now being produced which exceed 600 watts.[citation needed]

Here is a cool video showing you how you can make a LED grow light with off the shelf parts for around $57.  Now that is a great deal. Take a look, anyone should be able to do this.

96w DIY LED Grow Light - How to build it for $5796w DIY LED Grow Light – How to build it for $57

I built a 96w DIY LED grow light with off-the-shelf parts. This is how. It cost me about $57 – see the plans on my facebook http://www.facebook.com/realvince…

 

Some plants do require dark periods so you will have to turn off your LED lights illuminating your aquaponics garden for certain periods of time.

In addition, plants also require both dark and light (“photo”-) periods. Therefore, lights may be turned on or off at set times. The optimum photo/dark period ratio depends on the species and variety of plant, as some prefer long days and short nights and others prefer the opposite or intermediate “day lengths”.

Illuminance, or luminous flux density, measured in lux is an important factor in indoor growing. Illuminance is the amount of light incident on a surface. One lux equals one lumen of light falling on an area of one square meter (lm/m2), which is approximately 0.093 foot-candle (lm/ft2). A brightly lit office would be illuminated at about 400 lux.

To read more of the original article from Wikipedia, you can click here.

I hope you enjoyed this article.  Come back to our site often and we will try to keep adding useful information that will make your aquaponics experience more enjoyable.

  • A grow light is a type of electronic lamp designed to accelerate plant growth by emitting electromagnetic spectrum ideal for photosynthesis. LED grow lights make use of LED technology for illumination. The LED grow light market is analyzed by different product types, range of light spectrum emitted by them, and on the basis of new or retrofit type of installation. The application segments considered for market estimation of LED grow light include indoor farming, commercial greenhouses, vertical farming, turf & landscaping, and research purposes. The LED grow light has different power that differed according to application. For example the commercial greenhouse, vertical farming, and indoor farming uses high power LED whereas the turf and landscaping application requires the low watt LED for decoration of gardens and hotels.

    https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=237907331

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