Indoor Bonsai under LED lights.

Like JWT says, led light without lenses are not good for our application, lights like the ones from horticulturelightinggroup.com are very very good, but only if used in a growtent or other closed areas with reflective walls.

This beast of a Microcarpa with a ~40cm nebari now have its own space, in such early stage of development branches need room to grow extremely long in order to thicken up.

Hey everyone , hope this is the right place to come for advice. I have a brand new seedling of a red maple and am not sure when to repot it. I grew it from seed after cold stratification but can't figure out my next steps. Can anyone help?

Izzyvasko wrote:Hey everyone , hope this is the right place to come for advice. I have a brand new seedling of a red maple and am not sure when to repot it. I grew it from seed after cold stratification but can't figure out my next steps. Can anyone help?

That doesn't look like any maple seedling I've ever seen! Looks like a pine.

coh wrote:

Izzyvasko wrote:Hey everyone , hope this is the right place to come for advice. I have a brand new seedling of a red maple and am not sure when to repot it. I grew it from seed after cold stratification but can't figure out my next steps. Can anyone help?

That doesn't look like any maple seedling I've ever seen! Looks like a pine.

I second that.

Hello,

Finally I think I have arrived at the right place. I have been looking for recommendations on artificial lighting for bonsai but it seem an impossible question in lots of forum. It feels like when asking that question one is criminal.

Anyhow, I live in Thailand and got myself what seems to be a Ficus Annulata bonsai. You might think that living a in tropical country I could leave the tree outside but unfortunately I do not have a garden so I am left with putting the tree indoors. To add insult to injury my place is quite dark. I have no other choice than using artificial lighting. For now I am leaving the tree during the day at the front of the house so it can benefit from the sun but that is not sustainable as I have to keep watching if someone just came to steal the tree

Enough talking. Here is the usual suspect:





The Tree will be sitting on that stand and will be viewable to all so I rather have some light that is aesthetic and not some sort of contraption in closet.

Also, reading through this thread I have come to understand that spot lights are more adequate than a single light source. Is that correct? I ask because I came across this light and I'm wondering if it could be suitable: https://www.migrolight.com/product/migro-100/

Anyway, could anyone help assessing how many lumens / watts (LED lighting) would I need for this tree size? Also should I go for plain full spectrum LEDs (6000/65000k) or something in the 4000/5000k?

Thank you all.

Hanuman wrote:Hello,

Finally I think I have arrived at the right place. I have been looking for recommendations on artificial lighting for bonsai but it seem an impossible question in lots of forum. It feels like when asking that question one is criminal.

Anyhow, I live in Thailand and got myself what seems to be a Ficus Annulata bonsai. You might think that living a in tropical country I could leave the tree outside but unfortunately I do not have a garden so I am left with putting the tree indoors. To add insult to injury my place is quite dark. I have no other choice than using artificial lighting. For now I am leaving the tree during the day at the front of the house so it can benefit from the sun but that is not sustainable as I have to keep watching if someone just came to steal the tree

Enough talking. Here is the usual suspect:





The Tree will be sitting on that stand and will be viewable to all so I rather have some light that is aesthetic and not some sort of contraption in closet.

Also, reading through this thread I have come to understand that spot lights are more adequate than a single light source. Is that correct? I ask because I came across this light and I'm wondering if it could be suitable: https://www.migrolight.com/product/migro-100/

Anyway, could anyone help assessing how many lumens / watts (LED lighting) would I need for this tree size? Also should I go for plain full spectrum LEDs (6000/65000k) or something in the 4000/5000k?

Thank you all.

Sorry for the late reply, i think that light could work well for a single tree like that.
One eventual downside with such a open layout of the LED and lens can be that it will be irritating for the eyes, but maybe you can ask the company if they can install a optional reflector as well? I know there are nice reflectors on the market for COB LEDs.

Dreamcast wrote:
Sorry for the late reply, i think that light could work well for a single tree like that.
One eventual downside with such a open layout of the LED and lens can be that it will be irritating for the eyes, but maybe you can ask the company if they can install a optional reflector as well? I know there are nice reflectors on the market for COB LEDs.

Good point.

The company can provide a narrower lens (45 degrees) as the default one is 90 degrees and would spill light all over the place. I don't think the company can provide an additional reflector because the heatsink is designed by that company. It is not some standard heatsink that one often sees with other spot light brands. But maybe I could adapt one myself. It's only a matter of drilling 2 or 3 holes in the heatsink. This said I am wondering if the 45 degree angle lens wouldn’t be enough?

Hanuman wrote:

Dreamcast wrote:
Sorry for the late reply, i think that light could work well for a single tree like that.
One eventual downside with such a open layout of the LED and lens can be that it will be irritating for the eyes, but maybe you can ask the company if they can install a optional reflector as well? I know there are nice reflectors on the market for COB LEDs.

Good point.

The company can provide a narrower lens (45 degrees) as the default one is 90 degrees and would spill light all over the place. I don't think the company can provide an additional reflector because the heatsink is designed by that company. It is not some standard heatsink that one often sees with other spot light brands. But maybe I could adapt one myself. It's only a matter of drilling 2 or 3 holes in the heatsink. This said I am wondering if the 45 degree angle lens wouldn’t be enough?

I would then say go for the 45 degree lens, and buy a lux meter to check the distance, ~80.000LUX is kind of the sweet spot i think, but everything from ~50.000LUX - 80.000LUX is ok IMO.
With such a simple open design, you should rather easily be able to build some form of small shade/reflector on the fixture if the light gets irritation for the eyes.

I would also go for a 4000-5000K spectrum if that option if possible for this light, a lot of blue light in the spectrum (~6400K) tends to really not make that much of a difference in internode spacing or general growth, and also for a display/grow light its nicer with a tad warmer white light i think.

Dreamcast wrote:I would also go for a 4000-5000K spectrum if that option if possible for this light, a lot of blue light in the spectrum (~6400K) tends to really not make that much of a difference in internode spacing or general growth, and also for a display/grow light its nicer with a tad warmer white light i think.

The company produces its spots with 2 COBs. The Migro VEG, that's a 5k light spectrum and the Migro 100, that's a 3.5K light spectrum. I asked them if they could supply both COBs (at an extra cost obviously) just so that I could chose. I would prefer 4K but 5K I think will do fine.

Dreamcast wrote:
buy a lux meter to check the distance, ~80.000LUX is kind the sweet spot i think, but everything from ~50.000LUX - 80.000LUX is ok IMO.

Is that realy necessary? Looking at the light specs:

it has a 19,264 lumens output.

Using this calculator I get the following distance to get ~80k Lux.

Hanuman wrote:

Dreamcast wrote:
buy a lux meter to check the distance, ~80.000LUX is kind the sweet spot i think, but everything from ~50.000LUX - 80.000LUX is ok IMO.

Is that realy necessary? Looking at the light specs:

it has a 19,264 lumens output.

Using this calculator I get the following distance to get ~80k Lux.

Sounds good IMO.

So I have some refugium LED lights left from my saltwater aquarium hobby. These are quite pricey so I am going to try them out as grow lights before I sell them at a huge discount. It's still pretty hot here so it's going to be another 2 months before the tropicals move into the house.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/a360x-refugium-led-grow-light-kessil.html

roberthu526 wrote:So I have some refugium LED lights left from my saltwater aquarium hobby. These are quite pricey so I am going to try them out as grow lights before I sell them at a huge discount. It's still pretty hot here so it's going to be another 2 months before the tropicals move into the house.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/a360x-refugium-led-grow-light-kessil.html

Those lights look really good!

Have you hooked them up?