Re: [APD] Light intensity and internodal length

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

Certainly stem plants get more or less leggy with more or
less light.

A good reflector can make a big increase in the effective
available light from a lighting set up. And it requires no
additional operating costs for electricity. :-)

If you mean aluminum foil like you buy in the supermarket,
then yes you can do much better for a reflector.  Some are
surprised to learn that even flat white wall paint reflects
more light than aluminum foil, albeit diffuse.

Or you can try to locate some mylar foil. It's better than
plain aluminum foil. But you usually have to buy that in
long lengths, which makes it costly. One source is
litemanu.com

A highly polished metal reflector with a protective coating
to prevent corrosion is best. Coralife sells one available
at many on-line stores that is essentially flat but is
adjustable for width and can be cut down to length. That
would be an improvement over aluminum foil.

A few other companies sell reflectors too -- Triton used to
but I'm not sure since Aquarium Products acquired Triton. 

You can't do better than the AHS reflectors but AHS
basically sells kits and not individual parts.

So you might price out some of these options before
considering another lamp/bulb.

Hope that helps,
Scott H.

--- Seweryn Bialasiewicz <s_bialasiewicz at hotmail_com>

> . . . What I 
> am shooting for is nice dense plants without too many
> stem roots, not the 
> scraggly looking things I have now. Would a 3rd bulb
> help? Or maybe I should 
> get a real reflector instead of my home-job Al foil... Is
> low light or a 
> nutrient deficiency a cause of excess node roots in stem
> plants? 

=====
S. Hieber

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