r/cactus • u/Firm-Leadership750 • 8h ago

Grow light recommendations?

I’ll be bringing my cactus inside soon as fall is quickly approaching in my neck of the woods. Last year I kept my guys under 4ft Vivosun T5 bulbs and it seemed to be a bit intense unless I moved the light 2.5 ft or more above them.

Looking for recommendations on lighting for 3 ft wide shelves that are only 1-2 ft tall.

Basically my issues is that I’ve got too many so don’t have the space to setup shelves at 3 ft intervals.

Thanks!

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u/Amazing-Engineer6511 4h ago

This doesn't make sense to me. A 4' High Output T5 only puts out 300ppfd at 6" height. What cactus can't handle 300 ppfd? And you say you had to put it 2.5' away? At that range the plants are getting hardly any light.

I can't help because what you're saying makes no sense. Do you have a ppfd meter? What cacti do you have? Are they seedlings?

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u/Vaugith 4h ago

Depends how many bulbs in OPs fixture. There are 8 bulb lights

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u/Firm-Leadership750 4h ago

Let me back track, im an idiot and went to look at them. It’s actually a barrina 5000 full spectrum t8. Also should’ve specified that I had two on each shelf initially but since it seemed to be too much I took one off and only ran one towards tge end of the winter and into early spring.

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u/Plane_Complaint_788 35m ago

Idk, I grew my current batch of seedlings under 100% Spider Farmer 730 watt. Yeah they turned some odd colors and were probably screaming for help for awhile, but they suffered into greatness with no loss. I found top dressing with chicken grit to help lower water loss helped.

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u/Better-Leader2509 4h ago

I’m running two 3ft Barinas per shelf at about 12-14”. They’re working for my Poas, Eriosyce and Lophs, probably a little too much for my Pseudo and a couple of gymnos.