Tee, hee, hee.

Who says they are better than MH/HPS? Some institute that has done growing comparisons? People who have used them in real-life grows? The company trying to sell them?

First, a 90-watt LED will not come close to covering a 12 sf growing area - I have a 125 watt and it does maybe nine sf. Second, it seems all the LED makers have this fixation on red bulbs - fantastic if you like leggy plants.
Third, $274??? I paid $140 for my 125 watt panel.

Don't get me wrong - I love LEDs and think that in time, they will become the grow light of choice. But before they do, two things will have to happen: the prices will have to be slashed tremendously. If my 125 watt panel would have held its own against a 400 watt MH, I would buy a couple more. I did a grow test comparing them and killed the test after three weeks - the MH was that much better and pulling even further ahead each day.

But, I admit that for a banana plant in a DWC system, that light rocks. I have to add a couple of quarts of nuits per day but so far the growth has been amazing.

Mike

Hey Mike,
What plants were you growing in your test?
I was thinking of growing some leafy lettuces and/or herbs on a small scale (12"x12" DWC under a 25W LED) to see how it works out.

Grizzman,

For that test, basil. I also did one with hydro toms using just the 125 watt LED and a 400-watt MH. The LED did okay but the plants were leggy. The MH plants were taller but had way more leaves.

Here's a couple of the basil plants. These were taken on April 4. This one is the 125 watt LED:
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The 14 watt Red/Blue plants:
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The HPS plants:
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I cannot find my CFL pic from that week, but here are the plants from March 24:
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Mike

Mike,
How close to the plants did you keep the LED's?

Grizzy,

For the 14 watt panels, about 3". The ones under the 125-watt panel were about a foot, maybe a little more. I was trying to keep the light intensity about the same.

Mike

As someone who does use LEDs, two things that you should be aware of:

1) Anyone who says that LEDs replace MH or HPS at 3:1 or higher is lying to you. It's 2:1 at best, and really probably lower.

2) Some plants love LEDs. Others hate it. For example, don't waste your time trying to grow lettuce under LEDs.

If LED is not the valid option can someone recommend best (for the money) set up for 400w MH/HPS?

Well, for your money, for some plants, LED *is* the best option (factoring in your power bill and component lifespans). Power is expensive. But LED doesn't work well for all plants.

LED doesn't work best for most plants. Coming from a huge fan of LEDs but one who has tried them for basil, tomatoes, peppers and broccoli and probably a few other plants over the years.

Mike

As have I. How much LEDs were you using per how much surface area? Most people way-underlight their plants when they use LEDs, acting as though a 90W LED is the equivalent of a 400W HPS. It is not, hype notwithstanding. And you have to have several LED fixtures to get canopy penetration.

My basil, peppers, and toms loved my LEDs (I harvested tons of basil, but spider mites kept attacking my peppers causing them to periodically lose their leaves, and I accidentally killed my toms due to phytotoxicity from an insecticidal soap spray :P). Broccoli didn't grow well under LEDs. As for other plants:

Liked LEDs:
Shiso, banana, eggplant, coffee, squash, geraniums (it made them go overboard on flowering), several others.

Did not like LED:
Cauliflower, lettuce, caraway, cumin, fenugreek, several other herbs. Lettuce was the worst.

My main problems weren't lighting, though. They were pests. Controlling the spider mites without resorting to really nasty chemicals or killing my plants with phytotoxicity was an unending battle. Early on I had aphid problems, but I killed them really easily with some acetamiprid, a nicotine-like systemic. Unfortunately, acetamiprid makes spider mites worse. :P I initially tried to control them with insecticidal soaps, which helped a little, but also tended to frotz my plants. I tried a pyrethrin submerging of every last plant at one point (that took hours), but it *really* frotzed my plants. I later found sucrashield, which isn't super-effective against the mites, but it does indeed help and isn't so dangerous to the plants. And it's pretty biologically benign; it breaks down into a milk fat (octanoic acid) and sugar (sucrose) within hours. This winter I'll try using that alone and see if it does the job.

mj05 may not be the least bit concerned with what works best for most plants.
What are you growing mj05?

Hardclay7a: I'm in the process of moving indoor my ebbs&flow system. I'm going to grow tomatoes, peppers, cuces and some herbs.

mj05;
Tomatoes, Peppers, and Cukes like full spectrum light, Herbs generally do also. Lettuce and Parsley don't like high temperatures. Temperature may also play a part as to what type of lighting you choose along with the square footage, foliage density - How close together your plants are, and and the height your plants will grow to, along with how high your ceiling is. The closer the light is to the plant the more light will be delivered but at the cost of less area covered. Some types of lamps can't be kept as close as others due to the heat factor, More blue spectrum increases stockiness, While red is also necessary for plant health it increases legginess and is often used to force flowering in Photo-periodic plants such as Poinsettia. You have many options and no single lighting system is perfect for all applications. In some instances several CFL's or T-5 H.O. fluorescent units may be the best option. I'm not saying that the GrowUFO is a piece of junk, or anything like that. It's just that some of us including myself try to shy away from expensive products with a lot of sales hype. Much of it is about the return on the investment. When I see such products at my local hydroponics shop I often ask the salesman; "Is it worth it?" His answer is always the same; "That depends on what your growing."
~Ken~

You nailed it hardclay7a: "Is it worth it"?!! I'm not too lucky, not having local hydroponics store around, so I can expect advice only from this forum (thank you very much!). Initially, I had so much hope in regards to GrowUFO mainly because I could save money on my electric bill, having say that initial investment (price of GrowUFO) wasn't to important. But as you said, LED is not going to work meaning it's not worth it. Now. Maybe you can help me to choose MH/HPS light. My main objectives:
- I have 2'X4' ebb&flow system where I'm planning to grow: tomatoes, pepper and herbs (mainly basil and parsley)
- in addition I have small (16"X24") passive system

I can tell you from personal experience that HPS is bad for basil and not good for tomatoes except for maybe getting fruit. The basil will go to seed in a month or so and will have long internodes. The tomatoes will also have leggy plants.

I had a 400-watt MH and it came close to covering a 3' wide area, my 600 watt can do a decent job on a 4' wide surface.

Mike

Yeah your test is biased using a flowering bulb to measure vegatative growth. The UFO's basically are flowering bulbs and will unless tri spectrumed they have an ill affect on veg growth compared to sunlight proper blue spectruming mh.

One cfl in micro grows will almost match the MH if you tent it correctly reflectoring it all around @ 4 inches for 65watter.

I could out grow ya on those basil's with one full color led properly @660nm and 430nm using a computer monitor as only light lol.

make this ur computer background stretched, use it for rooting clones in record times if bubbling and lil co2

http://ultraledlights.com/nasa_grow_lights.jpg

DETAILS:
make a crimpled foil tent Covering all of monitor/clonages and be amazed @ proper science being dialed in and monitors being leds/lcd registering that what is good lol.

FOIL YOU SAY HA!---->
BTW I have found since leds are lazers mylar gets shot thru sorta speaking I use crimpled foil balled all up then spead out as impenetrable reflective surface it multiplies ONE multicolor led into billions of leds emiting same signature all over the plants aimed @...

These findings by trial and error and being silly lol they on a large scale I have no idea if they work as well as in the micro stage that they have performed for me I have rooted a clonages in one day doing this three @ max. Works for me when usually in best situation it took two weeks.

LEDS are awesome they heal me plants @ 633nm then grow like crazy @660nm always when healing lil blue in there always dialed way back I only dial the 660nm/430nm in when flowering. uber fun stuffs If you regulates led nm;s.

For an experiment I used an auto flashing rgb led with a static 630nm red led. The growth was great I blew out the auto rgb led trying more things like an idiot and havent gotten around to buying more its how I learned about healing properties of the led light emission... but for an experiment try one rgb auto @ blue input voltage not the usual 3.4v averaged for red it will burn out the led quicker 10k hours or so because red voltage is 3.1 blue 4.2 and dont look @ the thing its awesomely blindingly and in a foiled out 5 gal bucket with foil on top of soil in the bucket too and mini computer fan with a dollar store huge bowl capped on bucket making foiled parametrics its awesome lol. I should sell it lol.

Btw.. You can even try this just aiming the rgb led @ an area on one of your plants. They instantly move mon' they almost get up and walk twoard the led lol its visualy kewl.
Weird because green is supposedly not seen by the plant as a light I guess its a rainbowing good stuffs lol.

Was there a full moon last night or is it just October?

Mike