Mama Bear wrote:
Has anyone here used the Hortilux Blue MH lamps?

I have a plant stand on a south side window, the only available
window for it in this house. It gets decent sunlight from about
September through mid-April, then it loses it.

I'm presenly using a dual F40T12 fixture to cover two shelves of
gloxinias and one kalanchoe that someone gave me, but has never
bloomed indoors due to the low light. The top shelf is doing ok
but not the bottom.

I'm thinking of switching to a 150 watt MH lamp and fixture. I
read at http://www.futuregarden.com/lighting...ing_lamps.html
that the Hortilux Blue is supposed to be really good, but do they
make them in 150 watts? I don't think I need 400 watts, and all
that expense, I can't afford it, just to cover a couple of plant
stand shelves. ( a 4' long and maybe 14" wide area altogether )

Does Hortilux make the Blue MH in 150 watt?

Or other cost effective suggestions for me?

Thanks!




What kind of lamps do you have in the F40T12 fixtures? Especially in
the bottom fixture. How old are the lamps?

I recommend changing the ballasts in your existing fixtures to
electronic ballasts for F32T8 lamps. Try to get one with a ballast with
a ballast factor (bf) greater than 1. Don't confuse this with the power
factor, which you don't care about in this application. The new ballast
will cost you about $20.

I've found that plants really like Philips ALTO 830 series F32T8 lamps,
and they are cheap (like, $3 per lamp.) GE and Sylvania also make very
similar lamps. The lamps should last over 20000 hours and unlike F40T12
lamps and MH lamps, they retain 90% of their brightness all the way to
the end.

Bob