Hyper Tough 24" LED From Walmart: Review

[penumbra]

Demonstration of this, hold real creme de menthe up to light, light viewed through it will look red, due to blue being absorbed by the chlorophyll and fluoresced off as red because the alcohol solution is "dead", no where for the captured blue light to go, in a living leaf, the energy would make sugar. Red light captured is given off as heat. Cheap Creme de Menthe will only look green when viewing a light through the liquid, which means it was dyed with a chemical dye. Better Creme de Menthe the green comes from chlorophyll, and when a light is viewed through the liquid, the light should show red fluorescence.

I learned this when I was 12 or 13 and my dad showed me how to make a Grasshopper for my mom over Christmas. I was allowed a taste.

 

[Carol 83]

Any recommendations for a white one?

I have to have something that can sit on/hang from my plant stand shelves. I use these.

 

[19Mateo83]

I purchased this t5ho setup January 19 and my ficus and trident experiment are exploding with new growth. I have it set on a 16/8 schedule and it seems to be working pretty nicely. It has a pretty good quality reflector on it and it was pretty easy on the wallet. I couldent justify the heat and power consumption to breaking out the 500w metal halides I had left over from a reef tank.

 

[ShadyStump]

Am I interpreting this right? You would need like 5 of these to veg properly? I don't do indoor much.

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Ultimate bonsai answer: it depends.
Different plants have different light needs and at different stages of growth (as graph implies) and some lights will do much better very close to the plant, others distance is less of a factor. Even then, almost all lights have a sweet spot where light hits more intensely. That's how some vendors will try to scam you, giving only the reading from that sweet spot, or the average of multiple readings, but skip the weak spots.
I imagine the numbers given in this app are a very general average of what most plants need at a given stage. That or it's all for different strains of weed. Who knows.
I'm still learning the science, so I really couldn't tell you much more right now.

 

[ShadyStump]

So I decided to return this light.
Since we've started getting longer daylight hours again a few of my trees and plants indoors have started growing again, but big ovate leaves. It was only a week long test run, but the light didn't prevent new growth in that time from having the exact same problems, and the flower buds on my new gardenia are still very firmly closed.
I decided that I wasn't likely to see any improvement over time, and still needed a light, so I returned it and for $10 more got something in full spectrum at a comparable PAR/PPFD value, and rearranged my collection of lights. If my budget wasn't so tight and I didn't still need a light, I would have given this Hyper Tough to my kids for the plants in their bedroom, or used it for a quarantine area.

Overall, big box store brand yields no surprises; you get what you pay for. This is fine in a "kids' first grow light" sorta way, and will keep your trees and plants alive in a dim window over winter, but that's as good as it gets.
Mostly, my curiosity as to exactly what you get for $13 plus tax has been satisfied.