As with any type of indoor gardening method, hydroponic gardening requires  grow lights is the plants can synthesize food and grow.  However if you’re new to hydroponics the information available on the internet may make choosing your lights for hydroponics difficult.  This blog post will give a brief overview of what lights are suitable for hydroponics.

High Density Discharge (HID) Grow Lights

Originally HID lights are were often used for this purpose and still are. HID, or high-intensity discharge lights, come in several varieties, including metal halide grow lights and HPS grow lights. All HID lights require a ballast in order to control electrical current through the light.  However these types of hydroponic lights get very hot and require a cooling system.  They need to be kept at a distance from your plants so they don’t burn them.  They are also very expensive to run but once you have a ballast, this type of hydroponic grow lights are quite cheap to replace.  Just take a look in the shop.

LED Grow lights

LED grow lights are becoming more and more popular. These grow lights, using light - emitting diodes, produce a lot of light in colors useful for plant growth, and are cost effective as well. They are more expensive at the outset but are very cheap to run and last for a very long time.  They are also a lot cooler so they can be placed within the plants to ensure that light gets into all the shaded places.

Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL)

For those who have a very small budget and a small space, compact fluorescent lights (cfl) grow lights are probably the best choice for you.  These lights are also know as energy saving bulbs and you can get them in low wattage from your supermarket or DIY store.  You will need to get enough bulbs to create at least 90w of light to grow 1 plant.  It’s much more convenient to buy a specialist plug bulb holder (roughly about £6) and a cfl which is at least 125w.  These grow lights don’t get too hot, you should be able to handle the bulb without being burnt however they will burn the leaves on your plant if they touch it so you do need to ensure that they are moved with the plant growth.

If you’re new to hydroponics I would suggest using cfl for your grow lights, they’re cheap and don’t need any special equipment like ballasts.  If you’re an experienced hydroponic Gardner try out LED grow lights, you’ll save on enegy costs and they can just be plugged into the mains.

We’ve added a whole section on HPS Grow Lights. Our High Pressure Sodium (HPS) Grow lights are available in 1000w, 600w, 400w

Buy clicking the links below you can view our HPS Grow lights by wattage and find the cheapest HPS Grow Lights available on the Internet.

Follow these simple tips to ensure that your hydroponic garden is safe
1) It doesn’t help in anyway to continuously leave the grow lamps on in your garden, unless for those plants and/or a plant growth stages that really call for a 24-hour lamps requirement.

2) Make sure you periodically check for any damaged cords; worn out cords with wires exposed can increase the risk of fire and even electrical shock to the operator.

3) See that the grow lamps are not exposed to water as several grow lamps accidents reported are because of the same reason.

4) Organizing the cords of the grow lamps and keeping them away from fire is always advised. Tangled cords pose tripping hazard so bundle them and tape to make the place more organized.

LED grow lights have good and bad reviews, there’s no doubt that LED grow lights are a forerunner for future indoor growing, they out compare other grow lights in terms of light degradation over time or their total life time.

With LEDs it possible to create the exact wavelength of light that the plant need to grow or flower. HPS grow lights and Metal Halide lights waste a lot of their energy producing some light which is not beneficial to the growth of the plant.

LED grow lights don’t create much heat as a byproduct, so they can be placed extremely close to your plants without burning them. They would also work extremely well in confined spaces due to the lack of heat produced so would be beneficial to those who use hydroponic grow tents or poorly ventilated spaces.

However the setup costs for LEDs can be quite high depending on your grow space and the number of plants you’re wanting to grow. My research suggests that plants typically need 150 - 200 watts of LEDs lights. That’s a lot of lights, so for those who want to venture into the world of LED grow lights you might want to use them for seedlings and cloning and then decide whether the outlay of fitting your entire grow room or tent with LED grow lights is feasible or not.

You can view a wide range of LED grow lights here at Buy Hydroponics. Click the link below to see what options are available for LED lights, such as colour, wattage, shape, type and plug and grow LED lights.

LED Grow Lights

Indoor gardening and grow lamps are closely associated. Indoor rearing of plants always need external lamps source for normal growth of the plants and grow lamps are the ones that supply lamps to plants. In fact, grow lamps are the expensive investment equipment of your indoor cultivation of plants. Nevertheless, they are an invaluable asset to your new gardening venture. They are as good and as safe as your normal household lamps. Here are the types of grow lamps that are used in the gardening sector.

1) The HID Lamps or the High-Intensity Discharge Lamps: These comprise of the high-pressure sodium lamps and the metal halide grow lamps). While the non-fruiting stage calls for the metal halide grow lamps, for the fruiting stage high-pressure sodium grow lamps are the best. In deed these days high-pressure sodium lamps have features to be used during both stages.

2) Mercury Vapor Lamps: In these we get the phosphorus-coated grow lamps that are suitable for vegetative and fruiting stages of a plant. Replacement once in a while is the issue with these lamps and they are expensive choice as well.

3) Fluorescent Grow Lamps: These indeed are the best during the tender stages as the lamps emitted is soft and non-damaging to the young plants. They are best to raise a small nursery and establish the same.

4) Ballasts: The aforementioned lamps use the ballast system for instance the fluorescent lamps which have in-built ballasts where there is initial time lapse before the energy is built up within and then the lamps is emitted.

The high-pressure sodium and the metal halide grow lamps are operated from what is called remote ballasts. Quite the contrary mercury vapor lamps do not call for additional ballast. They can be just fastened into lamps holder.