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Target LED lamp lumens

1903 Views 5 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  GJL Creative Solutions
So I bought this awesome LED desk lamp for my dorm room while shopping on Target. I'm saving up for a Fluval Spec in the next couple weeks and wanted to try growing some medium-light plants + excel, but heard the stock light was a little low.

On the bottom of the lamp, it says the light output is 200 lumens. I'm still a little confused on the idea of lumens and PAR; is 200 lumens too little or too high light for medium-light plants in a spec? What about one of those Marina betta cubes? I have a spare one lying around that I was thinking of playing around with.

Thanks!
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Neither. It's a general term as it is used for that lamp. Lumen specifies how bright that lamp will appear to the human eye. Peak sensitivity occurs in the green yellowish portion of the spectrum at 555 nanometers wavelength to be specific. A lamp outputting in that region will look bright to us but not plants.
For lumen/PAR/ lighting intensity to have any meaning, a light source would have to state how many lumens it emits at all PAR wavelengths. It's usually not done that way. Units known as Micromoles are used. PAR and lumen is well defined within this forum and the web. Just do a search. Neither term is too complicated to grasp.
That lamp must be constructed with very low power leds, because 200 lumens is less light than 1 typical 3 watt led will produce all by itself. You'll need much more light than that, if you want to grow anything other than low light moss.
This might be a bit late of a response but I just bought what I believe is the same lamp and I will tell you that it is very bright.

I am willing to bet I will have luck with much more than low light moss.


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Unless a significantly fast shutter speed was used, I believe this will be an excellent source of light for low light plants. My understanding is that the yellow part of the spectrum (as seen on the pictures) are not ideal for the highly demanding plants, such as dwarf baby tears and non-greens (rotala colorata, ludwigias, red cabomba, etc).
Unless a significantly fast shutter speed was used, I believe this will be an excellent source of light for low light plants. My understanding is that the yellow part of the spectrum (as seen on the pictures) are not ideal for the highly demanding plants, such as dwarf baby tears and non-greens (rotala colorata, ludwigias, red cabomba, etc).
no photo tricks. Just my android phone. Thanks for the input, I hope you're right.
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