Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can I use a reptile UVB light to provide the water lettuce with the proper lighting for it to grow?

Nick

I've never raised water lettuce or any water plants. But I did raise hundreds to thousands of cacti and succulents. Very old lighting was 4 to 1 ratio of cool white fluorescents to incandescent, by wattage. I'm not expert at all, but I have never heard of plants needing UVB. In fact my ficas use to die in my cham cages. And I raised a lot of impatience under regular fluorescents in my basement.

With today's good plant bulbs, I would think they would be better than UVB. But, I'm going to wait to see what more knowledgeable people say too.
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Computers don't make errors. What they do, they do on purpose. (Dale Gribble)

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tom

www.herpzilla.com

The main thing in raising plants in a vivarium is having high enough light intensity in wavelengths that plants need to grow. A typical UV fixture with one or two bulbs doesn't put out enough light at a high enough intensity to do plants much good. It won't necessarily cause them to die, but your plants just won't thrive. Some plants which DO like higher light intensity [like Herpzilla's Ficus] will actually be killed eventually because they simply can't get enough like to photosynthesize properly. The major trade-off comes from having smaller enclosures that tend to be much hotter and with more poor lighting than most plants can tolerate or having really high intensity light which might be good for the plants but may drive your herps into hiding more. The best balance would be to have a large enough vivarium that your lights could be at least 2 to 3 feet above your plants so you could use high intensity light. If you planted the vivarium lushly enough the animals wouldn't be as stressed because you'd have areas of high and low intesity light hitting the floor of the vivarium. So, UVB and plants - not necessary and really not beneficial. Go with either a full spectrum daylight fluorescent from a company like FEIT [compacts are the best] or go with a dedicated plant grow bulb which will be a more reddish hue which you will still need to balance out with a really bright daylight spectrum bulb. Finally don't confuse full-spectrum with UVB/UVA bulbs - the two are very different. Full-spectrum bulbs only put out light that mimics the color spectrum and intensity of natural sunlight [minimum 5000k color temperature with a color rendering index {CRI} of 80 or higher].
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Matt Campbell

Big animals, little animals, plants - right down to the sea itself. We need them, not just for their own sake, but because all this has to be here for everybody forever. Only one thing is certain: if we are to preserve our environment and save this priceless wildlife we need much, much more knowledge.
Harry Butler from 'In the Wild With Harry Butler' 1977

I just wanted to say its great to see someone sharing their knowledge regarding this information as I along with others on here are completely lost when it comes to this sort of topic. It is nice to know that if I have a set up question that the users here are willing and more importantly able to share the knowledge to help myself and everyone else advance.
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Randall L Turner Jr.
Boas make the world go round.

Randy,

No problem - what's the point in learning if you keep all that knowledge to yourself?
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Matt Campbell

Big animals, little animals, plants - right down to the sea itself. We need them, not just for their own sake, but because all this has to be here for everybody forever. Only one thing is certain: if we are to preserve our environment and save this priceless wildlife we need much, much more knowledge.
Harry Butler from 'In the Wild With Harry Butler' 1977

Thanks for all the info, guys. Heres the deal i was going to grow the water lettuce inside right now because its still a little chilly out side, and then transfer it to my croc and caiman ponds when the weather gets warmer.
Now after reading all of the replies I decided to heat a stock tank out side and cover them at night and on colder days.

Thanks
Nick

Again, I'm not expert, but I do remember that my African violets needed high light intensity, but my impatiens, did better under much lower levels. I guess you just need to research that plant, or an any other you want to raise. I had a friend that raised some stuff in the early 70's hydroponically. I think he was raising,, oh never mind.

Point is it a shade plant, full sun, maybe as important is soil needs and nutritional needs. At one time I think I had 2000 plants. ALL LEGAL lol,,, But my golden barrel cactus were totally different from my lithops and different from my aloes.

Good luck
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Computers don't make errors. What they do, they do on purpose. (Dale Gribble)

AOL IM Mettzilla
I forgot my password for herpzilla, and gave a bad email,, major OOPS

1.3 Bearded Dragons
6 baby female Western hognose, 3.5 adults some friend some mine,,,building breeding stock)
1 Corn snake (bloodred) 0.1 MIA
1 baby creamcycle 0.1
Degus
2.0 Dogs,
0.2 Cats,,
0.1 Wives, (Long term captive!,, I mean ME!)
1.1 Kids (Paininthearsius takamemonii) J/K great kids
-----
tom

www.herpzilla.com

Oh wow water lettuce gets big. It needs lots light . I had water hycathin inside . Its from the same countries as water lettuce .
It actually grew very nicely but only when I used several plant type 5600k flourescent bulbs over it UVB means nothing these types of plants need bright light 5000k to 6000k is best.
I had vita-lite bulbs but Ultralume bulbs are just as good .
They need the green/yellow type plant bulbs in that range .
There are lots pond sites with info on water lettuce. I never heard of anyone keeping it indoors but see no reason why not.
Every time I put a link to another site like a pond site in any kingsnake forum it gets deleted so wont bother.
Some in kingsnakes pond forum might have some indoors to I imagine thats a good place to ask .