LED Replacement for 4' T5HO Fluorescent (F54T5HO)

[Setec Astronomy]

I have a F54T5HO (4') fluorescent fixture I want to upgrade to LED. Currently have 6500K bulbs.

I was prowling around Amazon and found some LumiaStar that were reasonably priced, and had good reviews...for the shorter bulbs; the 4' reviews seemed terrible. One recent reviewer recommended the Sunlite bulbs which are much more expensive, but he said were much better. Both of these are 6500K.

Then I stumbled on Active Grow. These are even more expensive than the Sunlite, and they don't sell by color temperature, but by "spectrum". They don't specifically recommend a spectrum for seed starting, I thought at first Sun White would be similar to the 6500K, but they also have a Spring Sun which logically might be better for seed starting.

Gardener's Supply also has LED replacements which are about the same price as the Active Grow.

Any thoughts on these or other LED bulbs? If anyone has talked to or used Active Grow lamps, which spectrum for seed starting?

[bower]

I am in the same boat @Setec Astronomy looking for the right LED lights. I just started looking on amazon.ca.
I really dislike the pink lights and I know they can damage your eyes so I won't be getting those.
There's now a type of light offered called "full spectrum" and "sun-like" which at least I can stand to look at, but I haven't found any info yet as to whether they actually are better for your eyes.
One thing I noticed is that strip LED's are offered at a much smaller price. I think these could be attached to the aluminum shielding from the old fluorescent lights and use that as the heat sink, thus saving/re-using the fluorescent housing.
Will be interested to hear what you think of products on the market now.

[Setec Astronomy]

I had emailed Active Grow about which "spectrum" they recommend, and heard back from the same gentleman that is in their videos on Amazon and the Active Grow website. He recommended the Sun White Pro which has more blue for root development. They are having a sale that ends tonight that undercuts their Amazon pricing by a bit, they say the products ship out of their Seattle warehouse so I wanted to get a look on Google Maps. Took me a bit before I figured out that their address is a Pony Express store (like Mailboxes, Etc.)...which is putting me off some.

The thing I do like is that as well as direct replacement LED's (which work with the existing ballast), they have ballast-bypass versions.

[rossomendblot]

For seed starting you don't need anything too fancy, higher efficiency grow lights are more for if you're growing from seed to fruit. Active Grow look very expensive for what you get, I think any high quality 'substitube' from Philips/Osram etc. would be fine (look for the tubes with the highest lumens/Watt output).

[Setec Astronomy]

rossomendblot, I hear what you're saying, and my original plan for this setup was an LED-ready T8 fixture where I had more flexibility in bulb selection, but since I wound up with these T5HO fixtures, I don't have as many LED options. Unfortunately I have too many other things going on in my life to rethink this from scratch again. I guess my thought process on this was that since the "not fancy" bulbs got bad reviews I was forced into a more expensive 6500K bulb, it wasn't that much more expensive to go to the Active Grow...but maybe that's faulty logic, I'm still pondering.

[rossomendblot]

I could never find suitable LED T5 tubes to fit my 2ft fluorescent fixtures, which is part of why I eventually bought a proper grow light. How much area does your 4ft light cover? It may end up being cheaper to get a 'quantum board' style light than buying several Active Grow tubes.

I wonder if these would be suitable for your situation? https://www.ledgrowlightsdepot.com/prod ... 5-led-tube

[Setec Astronomy]

That's certainly an option, but only slightly cheaper than the Active Grow. This looks like my options, all direct replacment (uses existing ballast) except for bypass option on Active Grow:

LumiaStar 6500K $10 ea. (Amazon, bad reviews for 4')
Sunlite 6500K $21.50 ea. (Amazon, actually $17.20 ea, but comes in a pack of 10 and I only need 8)
Thrive Agritech full spectrum $29.99 ea (linked by rossomendblot above)
Active Grow $32.50 ea. (Amazon; direct replacement or ballast bypass, various spectrums available)
Gardener's Supply full spectrum $38.95 ea.

Or rethink things as suggested and change the fixtures entirely. As much as I would like to bypass the ballasts in these fixtures, I'm leaning toward the Sunlite bulbs and being done with it, and move on to thinking about what I'm going to grow this year, along with all the other things I've got bouncing around in my head. The other thing I guess I could consider is some 5000K LED's, which should be cheaper and more available if perhaps not ideal.

[Cole_Robbie]

I havent used a t5 led bulb, but have been learning a lot about quantum boards. I have two small led lights over a basil garden. They cover about 4 sq ft each, viparspectra is the cheap brand. They use samsung diodes and meanwell drivers. So far, so good. If you are shopping for lights, you want to see a ppfd chart that shows you the light intensity at various distances.

[Toomanymatoes]

Are you using the T5HO for indoor growing as well? Seems like overkill for just seedlings.

You can get a complete 4' shoplight fixture with built in LEDs at 5000K for $20 at a big box store.

What is the advantage of moving to LED bulbs? Just the added efficiency? How much do the standard T5HO replacement bulbs cost?

At 8 X $21.50 you are starting to get into LED Quantum Board territory as well.

[Setec Astronomy]

Sorry, I had another thread from last year where the consensus was there was too much heat from the fluorescents for my seedlings, that's why I want to convert it to LED's. No indoor growing, just seedlings.

[zendog]

When you make the switch, just be aware that all of the types discussed above are generally limited to one color of LED emitter, or perhaps a couple, but generally don't include IR or UV. I've found tomato seedlings can be picky about this, depending on the variety. I'm switching to 4 foot units that have IR emitters included and may even put some UV bulbs in to run for a few hours a day or so as well. Most seedlings I can keep healthy enough, but the rootstock tomatoes I need for grafting are particularly sensitive to these missing parts of the spectrum. Here is one article on UVB light, although I belive UVA has been shown to work similarly.
https://u.osu.edu/ceatalk/2019/06/23/a- ... nt-health/

I do use LEDs and won't go back to fluorescents, but this is definitely something to be aware of, at least in my experience where I lost an entire 72-cell tray of rootstocks when they suffered from extreme edema like this article describes when the greenhouse covering filtered out too much of the UV spectrum:
https://vegcropshotline.org/article/ede ... ootstocks/

[Setec Astronomy]

When you make the switch, just be aware that all of the types discussed above are generally limited to one color of LED emitter...

I was thinking about this and went back and looked at my lights from 2020, one is a specific "full spectrum" LED grow light and the other has an AgroBrite 6400K bulb. I don't know if that AgroBrite bulb is really tuned specifically for plants, but the "grow lights" that I bought for 2021 with the T5HO fluorescents are just seem to be plain ol' 6500K bulbs (although they are LightWise "grow bulbs"), and I'm wondering if the spectrum just wasn't right for tomatoes and some of the other plants I was growing (my peas seemed to grow fine).

I know a lot of people say for seed starting it doesn't really matter, but I'd hate to spend money on an LED upgrade only to find myself back in the same situation as last year. I still don't really understand the problem I had last year, whether it was heat, light quality, difference in my growing medium, type of water, etc. too-much-light-t2401.html

I'm kind of torn on the ballast bypass...normally for me it would be a no-brainer to bypass the ballasts, but since the only bulb option for that is the Active Grow, if down the road I don't like the Active Grow bulbs, I won't have any other options (besides putting the ballasts back in). On the other hand, if I go with Plug n Play, and then I have a ballast problem...I normally would say that electronic ballasts should last forever, and that these should last double forever with the lower wattage of the LEDs, but I've had electricians tell me that these ballasts don't.

[zendog]

I wouldn't get T5 replacements for your existing light if it was me. I did that with some T8 shop light type fixtures, wound up having to take the ballasts out to get them working reliably even though they were supposed to work with the ballasts. Then I tried another brand when I wasn't happy with that and eventually went to some that were just T8 style LED lights that were complete fixtures. There are so many more options if you just get the stand alone fixtures and they are actually the same price, usually less than the LED replacement types. Maybe you can sell your existing light on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, etc.?

When the LED companies say "full spectrum" they are usually just referring to a broad spectrum emitter that has some of the different parts of the visible spectrum vs. the ones that are "blurple" (red and blue). It is nowhere near the spectrum of the sun and usually has zero UV and very little, if any, IR. My understanding of it when they are talking about color temp, in your case, 6500K is basically a color balance which is based on the ratio of the various elements of the visible spectrum. 5600K is generally considered daylight in photography and videography (what I do for my day job), but in reality, can be over 10,000K on an overcast day or well below 5600K at the ends of the day when the sun is low. So if you were to look at a spectrum chart of your 6500K lights it would have a higher peak in the blue range (420-480ish in terms of wavelength). Unfortunately the claims made by the sellers mix various terms like par, lumens, full-spectrum, etc. and also often talk about wattage "equivalents", all of which makes it tough to know what is what.

For many things it doesn't matter that much about the specific color temps (I've grown seedlings under 4000K and 6500K and not seen much difference), but some plants, tomato seedlings in our case, seem more likely to show issues if there are gaps in the spectrum they react to. In my case, growing rootstocks for grafting, they are particularly susceptible to crippling edema in the absence of UV. There is generally UV and IR in fluorescents, so I didn't see it too bad under my old T8 5600K fluorescent lights, but the LEDs are much more restricted to specific wavelengths and the absence of UV and IR is something I clearly need to deal with. To be honest, I can get by with my previous LED lights for general tomato seedlings, but they just don't look as good as I know they should. Since I want to grow the rootstocks, though, I'm trying new lights again this year, plus adding some UV-specific lights, and hope to solve the issue.

How much area are you trying to cover? You might be better off looking at some of the single fixtures meant for grow rooms, like the ones by Virparspectra if you are just trying to cover a couple of trays worth.

[greenthumbomaha]

For those on a budget or jut want something easy to use, elsewhere there was a discussion about Wal Mart brands Hyper Tough and Great Value red/blue LED grow lights. They are not high powered adjustable spectrum lights, but the original poster was quite satisfied with the growth.

I purchased a 2 foot version for $12.99 to hang flush on a small indoor green wire shelf unit in my dining room to start an additional 10 X 20 tray. My first group of zinnias got fried, likely either the height was too low or to long in duration, for zinnias at least. On the second attempt the flower seedlings grew really well by trial and error. I'm considering buying additional units for the remaining shelves. I could use some help with determining the height and light/dark cycle of various seedlings if anyone has time to review the specs so I don't try too hard again.

I can't remember if other poster was growing tomatoes, but it's a small price and very easy to hang. Worth buying to grow a few additional plants.

While you are on the Wal Mart site, what do you think of all the LED's that look like insect antennae ?

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[Setec Astronomy]

So I bit the bullet and got one set of the Active Grow Sun White Pro, direct wire. I bypassed the ballasts but left them in if I ever want to reconnect them later. Lights look pretty good, 96 watts total, vs 202 for the fluorescents (which started out lower, went up as they warmed up, then came back down and stabilized at 202), and I may borrow a cheap light meter to see what that says.

For those on a budget or jut want something easy to use, elsewhere there was a discussion about Wal Mart brands Hyper Tough and Great Value red/blue LED grow lights.
While you are on the Wal Mart site, what do you think of all the LED's that look like insect antennae ?

I have a couple of sets of the red/blue insect antennas that I got from Amazon, some plants (if I recall, pollinator support plants like basil, salvia, oregano) seemed to do better under them than the "white" lights. The ones I got were pretty nice, have a built-in timer which works well for the limited programming it supports. They weren't the greatest for me just by virtue of where I was clipping them to and trying to get uniform height etc. which is why I graduated to tube lights. It can be a little difficult to see how the plants are doing under the red/blue light and sometimes you need to look at them under different lighting.

[greenthumbomaha]

Amen to looking at the seedlings while not under the blurple lights. It could have saved my zinnia seedlings. Like a dummy I enthusiastically trialed with my first ever expensive variety seedlings.

Note to collective tjunction self, don't put everything in one basket. Cost me several weeks of grow time, to say nothing of depleting the seed stash having to start over.

I bit the bullet and bought the cheaper 2 foot full spectrum on walmart. I have two set ups of sunlight T5 on costco type racks, but who can resist a small easy access set up without rotating all those trays.

I am currently growing crocus saffron on the windowsill, and they are happily increasing on a sunny window sill. Yay!

- Lisa

[slugworth]

the two footers from walmart I glue magnets to the back,so I can stick them where the sun don't shine easily.

[Setec Astronomy]

I just checked the output with a cheapo Lux meter I borrowed, I don't know how accurate it is, but it is good for comparisons.

The LED's were actually about 50% brighter than the fluorescents...the fluorescents have one season on them, so maybe 1500 hours, maybe a little more, so they may have come down in output a little, I'm not sure I've looked at a T5HO curve, the T8's are pretty flat. It could also be the light spectrum that the meter is looking at.

But taken at face value, 150% of the light for 47.5% of the watts sounds pretty good, we'll see if I wind up with 1/2" diameter seedlings


PS Slugworth, I wasn't trying to do that...well...whatever that reaction to your post is that I accidentally clicked while trying to find the emoticon thing for my post.

[bower]

I'd be very tempted to get a heavy duty 'full room' light if I thought it would be healthy for me to be in the same room. This is the clincher for me. I need more light for myself - and more vegetables- in my home space, not in some isolated purple zombie zoo where you wear sunglasses to enter.

I read a lot about the 'sunlike spectrum' but I'm not convinced they are really doing it yet. I think they're faking it with a few colorful diodes. But I'm a cynic and hate to part with a few dollars for anything I may afterwards hate ha ha.

With regards the present 'sunlike' on the market, I might try a cheap one for seedlings just to suss out what plants think about it. Not definite enough to invest in the expensive ones. My plants were always okay with the fluorescents, LED's brought edema issues to the fore. I am not aiming to flower anything in the winter, I just want some greens and of course, healthy tomato seedlings for spring!

[slugworth]

I saw 4 foot led fixtures but I didn't like the red to blue ratio.
You can't just grab and run,you really have to read the label before buying.
Their quote

Perfect for indoor plants, vegetables, and flowers
Super Bright - provides light that stimulates plant growth
Higher red content promotes flowering and fruit generation and accelerates root growth
Reproductive growth spectrum with a ratio of 8 red :1 blue
A mix of red and blue light allows photosynthesis and maximum absorption of light