garysan
It's a learning curve...
I'm in the process of building a rack to house the growing collection and have zero'd in on a good, solid, metal rack with chipboard shelves (plants will be grouped together in shallow plastic trays to avoid damaging the shelves with water and to aid removal for watering, checking, etc.)
The rack measure 1525mm wide by 455mm deep and I'm looking at maximising light by fitting either a pair of single or a pair of double 5ft t8 fittings on the underside of each shelf (will likely do this one shelf at a time as and when needs must so I can monitor heat and airflow on each shelf before populating it with new plants). They'll also be a fan at each end of each shelf blowing across and most likely, a humidifier or two perched on the top feeding outlets along the length of each shelf to keep humidity up around 60%.
My question is this, I've seen lots of different fittings available with varying wattages and overall lengths; some of which extend beyond the 1525mm of the shelves and others which fall just inside that (don't want them extending beyond the width of the shelves TBH). What sort of tubes should I be aiming for? Do we use specific gro tubes or is it just getting the colour temp right? I realise I'm perhaps over simplifying but would appreciate some guidance. I'm in the UK so please bear than mind when pointing me at Best Buy or Home Depot....
The rack measure 1525mm wide by 455mm deep and I'm looking at maximising light by fitting either a pair of single or a pair of double 5ft t8 fittings on the underside of each shelf (will likely do this one shelf at a time as and when needs must so I can monitor heat and airflow on each shelf before populating it with new plants). They'll also be a fan at each end of each shelf blowing across and most likely, a humidifier or two perched on the top feeding outlets along the length of each shelf to keep humidity up around 60%.
My question is this, I've seen lots of different fittings available with varying wattages and overall lengths; some of which extend beyond the 1525mm of the shelves and others which fall just inside that (don't want them extending beyond the width of the shelves TBH). What sort of tubes should I be aiming for? Do we use specific gro tubes or is it just getting the colour temp right? I realise I'm perhaps over simplifying but would appreciate some guidance. I'm in the UK so please bear than mind when pointing me at Best Buy or Home Depot....