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Metal halide grow lights create fantastic light under which your plants thrive. These grow lights are HID or high intensity discharge, light. They are small grow lamps that produce a lot of light, yet are more efficient to run than either incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. Indoor gardeners and enthusiasts of hydroponics get great results with your plants when using the metal halide lights.

Metal halide lamps are made of multiple parts. There tungsten electrodes connected a quartz arc tube, which produces light. Inside the arc tube is where the mercury vapor, different metals and noble gases, all of whom play a role in creating the light produced by MH grow lights. The tube is covered by a glass ampoule. There is a metal base, and a connection to the power supply. Some metal halide grow lights use an arc tube made of alumina or aluminum oxide, too. This type of grow light requires the use of a ballast to control the flow of current through the arc tube lamp for growth to function properly.

Each different type of grow light has a color given performance index and correlated color temperature. This is the case of metal halide grow lights. Some of these lamps are 80 color rendering index, on a scale of zero to 100. This index classifies lights to show how well they reproduce the colors of the objects being illuminated by light.

100 is the highest rating and zero the worst. By So a 80 is the reflection of a light white high quality. In terms of correlated color temperature, MH grow lights can vary from 3000 K to 20,000 K. 3000 is found in the yellow of the spectrum, while 20,000 are located in the blue range. (K refers to the Kelvin temperature scale.) In terms of comparison, records daylight at 6,500 K, while a television screen is daylight at 9300 K and the moon is at 4100 K. If you are an indoor gardener, trying to recreate daylight for your plants to grow, so you want a light bulb as close to 6500K as possible.

The light produced by a target = "_blank"> lamp growth may fall into different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Some lights are more inclined toward the blue end of the spectrum, while others land on the orange and red end. This is important for the indoor gardener, because plants need light in the spectrum of blue baby to grow well. If you want a mature plant to produce fruit or flowers, then you have light in the red and orange spectrum.

About the Author:

Susan Slobac has enjoyed hydroponics gardening for years now, and has experimented with numerous types of grow lamps. She's had great success using metal halide grow lights for her indoor gardening at home and as part of her local gardening club.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - What Every Indoor Gardener Should Know About Metal Halide Grow Lights

Light Metal

Light Metal