Full spectrum LED strips tape for growing succulents and indoor plants

[antwebwalker]

I'm looking at modifying some built in shelving that I have in my house with some LED strips to help my succulents and indoor plants. Due to the fixed nature of the shelves and the relatively narrow spacing between the shelves (about 12"), I don't want anything too bulky or that generates too much heat or that would otherwise blow the plants away.

To meet these requirement, I've been looking at purchasing some LED strip tapes. On the surface this seems like a good fit - low power, low profile, customizable, etc.

The additional thing that I've been looking at is which spectrum of lighting to go with. At first I thought I would be best to go with Red/Blue tape (like the top in the below), but the more I read into it, the more it seems like having a hyper-focused spectrum light like this isn't necessarily good. I'm actually happy about this as it, the shelves are in my living room and I wasn't looking forward to the prospect of having this color of lighting running.

Given all of this, I've been trying to find some LED tape that is more of a Full Spectrum Sunlight replacement whilst still targeting the blue and red spectrum (similar to the bottom in the below), BUT I can't seem to find a tape version of this. All the ones that I have found are t5's or built into fixtures, which as previously mentioned wont work for me.

Hence I'm wondering if anyone knows what might be a viable solution for my case and/or if there is a tape that would get me close to what I'm after.

[TEKNIK]

4000K CRI90 is what you want. You should be able to buy that locally, big difference between cri80 and Cri90 4000K

[antwebwalker]

@TEKNIK Thanks for the feedback. Can you explain this a little more? For instance I was expecting that the strip i would find would have a small variance in LED colors (like the below). Also given the relatively short distance the plants will be from the light (12" in the max case, brushing up against it in the min case) is there anything I need to look for in terms of lumens to not "burn" the plants or given that its not an industrial LEDs array, I should be ok?

[antwebwalker]

Just bumping up.

[TEKNIK]

Did you want a full grow light to grow high energy consuming plants or juts some herbs and similar plants? Need to be specific on what you are trying to grow and also find out the spectrum that suits the particular plants

[antwebwalker]

@TEKNIK I'm seeking to mainly keep my plants healthy. They are lots of succulents, various green leaf houseplants and some air plants. I'm trying to avoid the specific blue/red lights as these shelves are in the middle of my living room and "white" based (full spectrum) lights look better when people see it. Does that make sense?

[antwebwalker]

@TEKNIK You originally mentioned 4000K CRI90, when would you go 4000K CRI90 vs 6500k CRI90 for growing the type of plants I've described? Also with CRI, does that indicate how "full spectrum" the light is (hence why wanting it to be 90+)?

[TEKNIK]

4K Cri90 is usually the most balanced spectrum of all, that's why I suggest it. It has red going into a touch of far red and also plenty of blue.
If you go higher in colour temperature to 6500k Cri90 it's a significant decrease in red content. Same if you go the other way to 3000k, you have a significant loss of blue content.
If you just want an easy to get your hands on product then 4000k cri90 is one of the best options.
I don't know what the exact spectrum is you require for your plants but if you use 4000k Cri90 then it covers everything

[antwebwalker]

Do you think its worth getting something like this https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinf ... b/overview (which has alternating warm and cool diodes) or just stick with 4k? Also how many lumens would you think are needed? Lastly, is there any point going higher than CRI 90 (something like these - https://store.waveformlighting.com/coll ... t-5-m-reel... seems very expensive if its . not that much more beneficial).

[TEKNIK]

By all means get the broadest spectrum you can afford.