Hydrofarm Agrobrite FLT24 T5 Fluorescent, 2 Foot, 4 Tube Grow Light System, 2-Feet, White

I have used Hydrofarm seedling heat mats, thermostats, and lighting systems for years now and can attest to overwhelming success these have afforded me in getting my garden plants started in late winter.This particular light is well-made and has four replaceable bulbs. The packaging is outstanding and all arrived well, intact, and undamaged when received. I did break one of the bulbs when taking my setup down after springtime planting and I haven't had much success finding "grow light" replacement bulbs at my local hardware store, but finding a 24" T5 that will fit in a pinch shouldn't be too hard. Speciality garden shops may have the 6500K bulbs, or you can pick these up non-Prime on Amazon from several sellers.Heat mats and proper lighting are the key to consistent and prolific germination of seeds started in late winter to be ready for springtime planting.Here's the setup I've used for the past few years:-Park Seed Park's Double Bio Dome with 80 Jumbo Cells. I actually use 2-18 Jumbo Cell for a total of 36 plants. There are several sizes of the Bio-Dome system. I have the DOUBLE Bio-Dome which allows for two seed starting cells (Purchased from Park Seed)-Hydrofarm MT10008 20-by-20-Inch Seedling Heat Mat (Purchased from Amazon)-Hydrofarm FLT24 2-ft/ 4-Tube T5 Commercial System with Bulbs (Purchased from Amazon)-Hydrofarm MTPRTC Digital Thermostat For Heat Mats (Purchased from Amazon)-Style Selections 36-in H x 24-in W x 18-in D 3-Tier Steel Freestanding Shelving Unit (Purchased from Lowe's)The modular, adjustable wire shelving unit gives me the foundation for my indoor winter seed-starting setup. The shelves are adjustable so that I can hang the grow light on the underside of the top shelf, then adjust the middle shelf so that the top of the Bio Dome is about 6-8 inches from the light. This allows for enough room to remove the top of the Bio Dome in the event I need to access the plants for watering, fertilizing, etc. The bottom shelf is great for storing my remaining planting supplies.The light is almost the same size as the Double Bio-Dome and provides 100% light coverage necessary for young plants to thrive. A few years back, I tried to use a light that was only 2 bulbs and half the size of the one I currently use. You could tell that the young plants would angle toward the light hanging in the middle, and those on the outer edges didn't grow as quickly and tall as those in the middle. Take it from someone who spent $25 - $50 each year over the course of several years trying to find a light that would work well with my seed starting system. I knew about the Hydrofarm light early on, but wasn't too eager to purchase it due to it's higher cost. I wish I would have gotten it first because I would have saved money in the long run considering the poor-performing lights I purchased in years prior to getting the one listed above.The Park Seed Bio Dome is an extraordinary seed-starting system that allows your plants to grow quite large without root binding problems found in other tray-type seed starting setups. Park uses the styrofoam cell matrix with replaceable organic bio-sponges in which the seeds are planted.I regulate the temperature of the seed heat mat with the Hydrofarm MTPRTC Digital Thermostat set at between 85-90 degrees. This thermostat has a temperature probe you can insert into one of the organic bio-sponges to obtain a direct soil reading. I route the probe through one of the vent holes in the lid of the Bio-Dome.In order to capture the most heat from the heat mat, while allowing the thermostat to regulate the temperature of the mat, I first take a folded beach towel and place it on the middle shelving rack. I then set the heat mat on top of the towel, then place the Bio-Dome on top of the heat mat. This allows me to recover most of the heat that would otherwise radiate from the exposed, bottom side of the heat mat.Watering with the Bio-Dome setup is easy and, depending on how you have the vents adjusted in the lid, performed infrequently at best due to the efficiency of water vapor recovery of the Bio-Dome system.I typically start tomato and pepper plants in mid-February so that they are ready for planting by the first week of May. You may want to check online for your indoor planting and outdoor transplanting dates depending on your region and climate.I hope my sharing with you what has worked quite well for me will help you in your seed-starting endeavors!

This light is brighter than the sun. Is that even possible? I don't know- but I can't look directly at either one of them. My honey and I bought this light for our business. We buy fur pelts from local Native American villages and need good lighting in order to inspect the furs. In our normal house lighting we can't really see actual quality of the fur. But in this light- holy smokes we can see everything. Tears, holes, grease burns, stitch-marks, bullet holes- you name it. We can find it all. It helps us accurately grade the fur, but also helps us show the trappers what their problem areas are and how they can improve their quality.The light came in a fairly large box. Just the box itself- not an Amazon box. So there was no secrecy in the fact we were ordering this light. In Alaska marijuana growers are pretty notorious for using these- so we got our fair share of jokes from the post office. But if you're not worried about privacy (we aren't) then I guess that doesn't matter. This light comes with four bulbs- already attached. This is really nice because we were concerned about finding these size bulbs. The light was so bright with four, that we opted to use only two. This light is much more plausible for our use.There is a small switch on the side of the light. This is fine, except we attached ours to the ceiling- so in order to turn it on we have to either climb up onto a chair (or my honey can just step on his tippy-toes). The light comes with 'hangers' to hang the light. This would work fine for someone who didn't want it permanently in one place- but we wanted ours screwed in. In order to screw the light in we had to remove the mirror backing and the bulbs. This involved about 20 minutes of unscrewing and rescrewing screws. Kind of a pain in the butt. But because of it's versatile screw holes you could virtually hang this light anywhere and in any way. Vertical, horizontal, or upside down from the ceiling.This light does come with a cord that attaches to an outlet. This was nice because we didn't want to have to install wires and all that jazz. Instead we just plug it in when we need it. That works well for us. Once again it also makes it easy to move around.Overall this light has worked great so far. It's held up wonderfully and installed nicely. The light is extremely bright- which works good for it's intended purpose. If you want something a bit duller, just remove two of the bulbs. That amount is manageable for us.

UPDATE: So after a year of no complaints, the ballast took a dump. It comes with an electronic ballast of a brand I've never heard before. Replaced it with a BallastWise electronic ballast I found on Amazon, and it works again. Ballasts do go out over time with use (mine was running 16 hours per day most of the time since I bought it) so I'm not too upset. Just make sure you know what you're doing if you attempt to replace the ballast yourself! Don't do it if you don't feel comfortable! If you're worried about firing it up for the first time with the new ballast, plug it into the bathroom GFI for its initial test drive.I bought the 2 foot, 4 bulb model. It's an awesome light for indoor growing. It comes with an electronic ballast and warms up the tubes really quick. Super robust design and build quality. Heavy duty power switch, and a long oversized grounded fixture whip.My only gripes are these...One: the included bulbs are cheap. They work for a few months before losing their gusto. Do yourself a favor and get a set of EyeHortilux PowerVeg T5HOs.Two: the ballast only runs on 120 volts. All of my grow lighting runs on 240. Not a big problem.Overall, I love this thing and I highly recommend this grow light. High output T5s are perfect for veg but also can be used for flower when used correctly. I might buy a 4 foot, 6 bulb T5 sometime in the future.