Dear TanningBeds.org,

Can an old Sperti table top sunlamp be used as a growth lamp for plants, herbs and vegetables safely? If so, what would be the recommended exposure time (i.e, 20 minutes per day)? Thank you for your attention.

Casper

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Dear Casper,

You wouldn’t want to. Sperti units emit a great deal of UV, and UV kills plants in anything over moderate amounts. They can only tolorate what the sun give them, which is much less than what a tanning system of any kind delivers. Adding MORE UV is not going to benefit them in any way.

From my experience, it is hard to beat an old fashioned fluorescent light for general all purpose
growing. We used to propegate our own plants from seed for the garden. (too lazy in my old age to do this any more, so we buy seedlings now) This can be done as the sole light, or on a cheap timer to suppliment natural sunlight.

We would use simple two bulb fixtures (F48, or 48 inches long) that you can get from Home Depot for well under 20 bucks. The lamps are cheap too. If space is an issue, use the CFL, or compact fluorescent lights in a standard light bulb fixture. They use less power and last about 5 times longer, and they produce a decent imitation of the sun for plants. It isn’t as
good as grow lights, but if you put enough light on the plants, they wont mind.

Every office plant in the world has been doing fine with 4 foot fluorescents lamps for decades. They would NOT be doing well with the UV. Regular fluorescent lamps use a glass and phospor that is designed to filter out all UVA, UVB and UVC. Tanning lamps use a phospor that enhances and creates UVA and UVB, while the glass filters out the UVC. They use the same basic technology (which is over 100 years old, thank you Nikola Tesla) but the output is very very different.

Another note: Tanning units and regular fluorescent fixtures use VERY DIFFERENT ballasts. Tanning bulbs are HO (high output) and use more electricity per foot of lamp than regular lamps, so you don’t want to mix the lamps/ballasts for these.

Dennis