Quote:
Originally Posted by freeztar
I understand all this Cedars, but I still can't understand what you mean by:
The colored glass is changing the wavelength/frequency of the light. The K scale is measuring the same thing essentially (wavelength), except it assigns the color (read wavelength) value in relation to a radiating black body (such as stars; hotter stars [more K] are blue/white and cooler stars [less K] are red/orange/yellow).
In other words, if I take a flashlight and shine it through a blue lens, I am changing the wavelength of the light, and hence I see blue on the other side. Correct me if I'm wrong. 
The reason I believe 'party lights', and other household lights, are not good for plant growth is because they lack intensity (much of the energy generated is thermal, hence these bulbs get hot).
They would probably work, if you could get close enough to the plants without burning them.  |
What Turtle and Gandomera said sums it up quite well. I believe its different types of phosphorous to achieve higher reds and blues (as well as green) spectrum types.
I am no expert which is why I suggested looking up what the aquatic plant people are doing/using. Artificial lighting leaves something to be desired and with the added burden of trying to get enough light thru the water (along with ferts/CO2) these guys methods may offer added insight on using artificial methods to produce a quality plant.
All fluorescents are not created equal having seen impact on plant growth in the office I worked at. George (the maintenance guy) came to replace burnt out bulbs and within a very short time leaves fell off plants. While the light us office ladies needed to work was adequate, it was not good for our medium and higher light plants. George was a good guy though, he ordered new bulbs and switched out the ones he replaced with the higher K bulbs, and used the other ones in non-plant areas. We did not achieve the same level of growth with the high light plants, but the leaves no longer fell off. Different companies bulb. According to George, the cost was significantly higher for the original type of bulb. I attribute that to the former building owner, a health insurance corp, probably going with full spectrum/daylight type lighting (a guess on my part).
