too expensive, the details don't say how many lumens it puts out.

you can get a couple of 4000 lumen, 300watt equivalent CFL's at HomeDepot or Lowes for that price.

Thanks, Houston. Do you know if the CFL's produce enough in the red spectrum to promote blooming/fruit development? I'm thinking ahead to wintertime.

they probably do. my Meyer bloomed while it was indoors during a few of our colder winters.

check out the "growing under lights" "orchids" "plumeria" and "tropical fruits" forums and you'll find some posts about indoor grow lights and blooming.

I use the 60 watt equivalency CFI I use warm white to cool white, what ever is on sale. the warm white bulbs are what they call 2700K temp. That does fine with sunlight to give your tree all it needs. You can buy approximately 36 CFL's in the home depot's 12 pack at 650 lumens each for the price of one LED. ---------THATSALOTALIGHT---------
The fact that you are south of the zone 8a line you should be able to get the out door sunlight you need and the bulb temp won't be that ,critical. the lower temp.K the more red the bulb and the bulbs are less expensive. Stay away from LED's for the next 5-10 years. they might be cost effective then. The setup I am using (2 aluminum foiled buckets 5 gal each with a 13 watt CFL) has worked wonders for me but my tree is much smaller than yours. I'll post a couple of picture and you may be able to modify something similar to meet your needs.

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The seed grown meiwa kumquat tree you see fits very nicely in the bucket light system and is quite happy there.

CFL's it is, then. Very nice set-up, p.c.guy. Am searching for a portable floor stand that will take CFL's. The area that gets the best light for me is unfortunately my large bedroom window, so that's where my biggest citrus are. A floor stand can be easily moved around for maximum direction; that would be optimal. Haven't found one yet that doesn't shoot light straight up to the ceiling.

Why not mount the light above the tree and let it shine down on it? That's how I have my lights. I use 48" shop lights from Lowe's or HD and use the best bulbs I can find, I think they're 4000 lumens.

T-8 bulbs put out 1.5 times to 2 times the light of a T-12 bulb as long as you use an electronic ballast. .Don't use T-5 even if you're encouraged to. Home depot caries 3 grades of tubes get the mid range Its about a dollar more each.. If you use 48 inches. Let the light shine at night in front of the tree with a white shade pulled behind it. Get light from both side with white shade.

"T-8 bulbs put out 1.5 times to 2 times the light of a T-12 bulb as long as you use an electronic ballast. .Don't use T-5 even if you're encouraged to."

T5s are significantly more efficient than T8s, and, because of their size, much easier to fit with efficient reflectors. There's a reason they're being used growing coral.

yeah, they're more expensive.

T5s are significantly more efficient than T8s, and, because of their size, much easier to fit with efficient reflectors. There's a reason they're being used growing coral.

A lot of research I've seen show the tremendous gain with T-5 over T-8. The T-8 were being used on magnetic ballast and the T-5 were on electronic ballast. These are sales pitch for the much more expensive T-5. The research I looked at was supposed to be "unbiased" with nothing to sell by friendly gardener growing under lights giving advice. The way stats are measured are almost always slanted to the researcher agenda. My own cost analysis showed me that T-8 Beats T12 hands down, and obliterates T-5,. I'm using CFL's in bathroom mirror strip lights and will go to LED's when these burn out and Fluorescents of any kind are dinosaurs. I will research this again to see if I am right. Don't invest in T-5 The LED's will direct the light !00% on the area you want. NO REFLECTORS NEEDED and the're coming soon. I am in charge of the lighting of an organic micro greens farm and I have to keep current if I am to keep my boss on the cost effective cutting edge in his business.
I also have to add a correction to what I said last time. My trees get their dark time from when the sun sets, to when turn on the lights when I go to bed. This dark time is important. The more sun your tree gets, the less important the temperature of the bulb.
If Your current fixture is a electronic ballast with T-12 bulb, you can use T-8 to get about a 1.5 x increase in light. The pins for T-8 & T-12 Are Identical. The T-5 are different. To check out the ballast pick it up, If it is lightwieght-electronic Use T-8: Heavy-magnetic don't swap bulbs. I believe I recognise your fixture and I think its electronic With the current set up, you may get enough light with a white window shade pulled behind the tree.

The picture below gives access to my photobucket display of my 13 month old meiwa kumquat tree from seed.

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This tree is grown with sunlight and the bucket set in my last entry for cold months

So, basically, the research disagreed with you, so you just ignored it, and instead spread misinformation.

All GE bulbs, 6500K, 48":

F40T12 - 40w 2775 lumens (CRI75) - 69 l/w
F32T8 - 32W 2610 lumens (CRI78) - 81 l/w
F28T5 - 28W 2480 lumens (CRI86) - 88 l/w
F54T5HO - 54W 4465 lumens (CRI85) - 82.7 l/w

So, your T5HO is slightly more efficient than a T8, and drastically brighter (if you're running into space issues). Your T5NO is significantly more efficient than the T8.

None of these things take into effect reflectors. A good T5 reflector is about 3" wide. In order to get the same percentage of light reflected where you want it, you need a reflector thats about 6" wide for a t8, and almost 9" wide for a T12. Thats per bulb. Narrower bulbs allow for drastically narrower reflectors.

The standard shoplights with 2 bulbs in them probably lose 50% of their light between bulb strike, poor geometry, etc, while T5 individual reflectors are roughly 95% efficient.

So, in practice, the numbers actually look like this:

T8
32w - 2610 lumens * .50 reflector efficiency = 1305 lumens, or 40 lumens per watt.

T5
28w - 2480 lumens * .95 reflector efficiency = 2356 lumens, or 84 lumens per watt.

Now, T5 reflectors are about $20 a piece right now, bulbs are dollar or two more than similar t8 bulbs, and ballasts are a bit more expensive (a couple bucks per 4 bulb set up), so there's cost/benefit tradeoffs for each setup.

Let people make their own decisions. Don't lie to them so they'll make the same one you did.

As to the OP, the LED fixture you're looking at isn't very good. LEDs trying to mimic other types of bulb aren't going to be particularly efficient. The way they produce light (as a highly directional point source) means that reflectors/lenses need to be designed very differently to accommodate them.

The set up I did was about a year ago. The price difference was almost 3 fold. If your prices are that close then T-8 is still the way to go but by a much narrower margin. First of all there is no reason that a reflector is only 1/2 as efficient if used on a T-8 instead of a T-5. This is the funny math: and I don't mean HA-HA-HA: that I was talking about, that merchants use to sell more expensive light that simply are only marginally better.

The big reason to stick with T8 is that the pin size fits that of T-12 and the new 48 inch tube LED's that are made to replace these fluorescent "DINOSAURS" They will replace down the road at a better price. The T-5 fixtures simply wont.

The T-5 tubes are only 15% of the strength of a T-8 tube and is a beak hazard in areas where they may get bumped. They should only be used in over head lighting.

I use CFL'S in closed buckets and boxes which has done far better than my 48 inch tube light at less power.

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mouse click on picture to see my display of my bucket light system powered by one 13 watt CFL at 5300K

This is my 4' by 4' ft at 3.5' tall enclosed box light system with 16---5 gallons buckets growing fruiting pepper plants. Mouse click on the picture to open my Photo bucket display.

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I gave my tube lights away to a friend who is asking me why his nagami kumquat trees are growing slower than mine.

Hi yakkwak

using a white window blind behind the tree and running a light on a timer so it runs from sunset till 6 hours before sunrise will probably work very well for under $10 to get you through the cold months. At zone 8A the tree wont be spending much time indoors.

Good luck

yakkwak

Did you chose something for you trees. Or are you able to put them outside to think on this more. My Meiwa kumquat tree is out all day but nights are still to cool. I give the tree 6 hours in the bucket-light midnight to daybreak Good luck.

Steve

Steve - I recently visited my sis & bro-in-law and showed them this thread. They got quite a kick out of the banter ;-o. He's a master elect. and don't know why I didn't bounce this question off of him in the first place (could have had a V-8), but after he quit laughing, he went to his 'stash' of electrical stuff (he's quite the electrical and electronic hoarder) and said, "Here, try this and tell me how they react". As you can see, he's not one for detailed explanations..... It's a shop fluorescent to add to the grow light. I'll rotate them daily. Since it was FREE!!!.... and I keep a close eye on the trees .... nothing really to lose. BTW, lots of clouds and rain here recently in the big "D" metroplex.