Gerray -

In our club we got the light meter and checked how many foot candles this thing produces. Not enough. If you get one which is really 30-40 watts instead of 13 - it will work in a small reading lamp above 1 plant. So you can have it at work on yur table. You can use 13 watt - if your violet is on the window - but not bright enough as a supplement.

So far - stick to your tubes - they give consistent light evenly spread. If the fixtures would eventually give up - I would replace them with T8 fixtures instead of T12. I got 1 in Ace Hardwear for $19.99 - you can use 34wt T8 tubes with it - and you can get more light out of them - so you can decrease the hours.

Good luck

irina

Thanks for your advice.
specifications written on the vendor's box says 13w serpentine soft white bulb equal 60 watts and give 830 foot candle which I feel is enough for makes my violets flowering.
I agree with you that light is spread evently with tubes and I am questionning about the quality of the bulb's light, I will contact Sylvania to find if they produce this type of light for horticulture purpose. I will post their answer

Hi Everyone,I use fluorsecent lights above some of my violets and my guestion is when should they be changed? Terri

Terry - the general advice is every 6 months and change 1 tube at a time wait a week or 2 and then the second.

You can procrastinate a bit - watch for the dark stripes near the ends of the tubes - when you distinctly see them - the light production is significantly decreased. And again - if you grow plants for show - you sure need to be on the top of it - but if you are rooting leaves for example - you can do it on old tubes just right.

I.

I- how much light do you think you are losing if you leave some of the plastic covers on the light fixtures-Terri

I have read that changing the tubes every 12 months is satisfactory if you are growing show plants, and then change only one tube at a time, since the light intensity is greater coming from newly replaced tubes and you run less of a chance of providing too much light at once. However, if you are not growing to show, as I am, you can probably get a lot more life from the tubes. I plan to burn mine until they burn out or until they are obviously not putting out the amount of light that I feel my plants need.

I don't know how much light is being lost if you leave the tubes covered in plastic. About the only way to say for sure is if you had a light meter and measured the light coming from a fixture covered with plastic and then check that against the reading from a fixture that is not covered. I have a light meter and I have checked the amount of light coming from my fixtures and it is in the 1200 foot candle range where the meter is practically touching the tubes, but I have never covered my fixtures with plastic and took a reading.
Just being curious, but what would be the benefit of keeping the fixtures covered in plastic?

Curtis

Curtis, That is the way they came my husband mounted them on my shelf the way they came and since then when I put plants under them the leaves seem to be reaching up in search of light. I can grow babies from leaves under them with success. But in order to make my plants happy I have to keep moving them around.-Terri

Terri,

I think we don't have as much information as we need to answer your question. So, what is the wattage of your tubes, how many in a fixture, how far from tube to top of plant, and how long are the lights on. These are all variables that affect your plants.

Barbara

Hi Terri,

If your violet leaves are reaching upward for the light, that is a pretty sure sign that they could probably use more light.

Regarding your plastic cover, I am thinking that even though you husband has mounted them, if you think you might get better light by removing the cover it is probably a simple matter of removing it, since most fixtures that come with covers still must be accessible to clean the cover, change the tubes, etc. I have a 4 foot flourscent fixture mounted in my kitchen ceiling and although it looks really complicated to remove the cover, which is really a light diffuser, it simply lifts up, slides to the side, and it comes right off. I don't need any tools to take it off, and it goes back on just as easily. Actually, the cover is just hanging from four brackets, two on each side of the fixture. But if the cover that you have is similar to the one that I have installed in my kitchen, you should be getting quite a bit of light from it.

How high above your plants is the fixture. I keep my plant stand fixtures hanging 10-12 inches above my plant tops. If your fixture height is not adjustable, you might try elevating your plants a little closer to the fixture and see if this might help. Flourscent light intensity decreases fairly significantly the further the plants are from the light source. According to my light meter, my tubes make about 1100-1200 foot candles almost touching the tubes, but I only get 450-600 foot candles at the top of my plants at 10-12 inches below the tubes.

Curtis