I'm curious guys. I've opened the cover of my DWC rig roughly every week, looking at the root growth then closing it up. I've recently noticed a brown sludge forming on the sides of the DWC bucket, since there is practically zero light penetration into the tank, I'm wondering if this is a function of what little light enters the bucket or just a byproduct of the water nutrients I've added to it. In other news, I'm going to add another 2 cool white and 2 warm white LED bulbs, which are considered to be 50w replacements for some other kind of bulb. I was wondering though, if I should place 2 warm 2 cool 50w bulbs directly above the plant and the 2 warm 2 cool 35w (comparable replacement value) g4 capsules half-way up the plant to ensure the plants get an overall light coverage.

"Since I'm the electrician, I know where they are going. I'm using ICAT's of course, although they don't look very AT to me. I'm going to make sure they are well sealed to the ceiling plane, AND they are going to have boxes over them in the attic before the insulation goes in. " give me a minute to get my foot out of my mouth...LOL! if there are no holes in the housing..they are air tight. but what I find is that the cuts in the sheetrock are often oversized, so that the leakage is now at this penetration. I use a mastic tape to seal between sheetrock & housing of recessed light, then once trim kit is installed, the mastic tape seal doesn't show. by doing this additional sealing, the box over the recessed light in attic isn't necessary. after a decade & a half of testing homes for air leakage...doing the air sealing work..trying everything from ice chests to sheetrock boxes to ul rated 'hats' that go over recessed lights, I've found that the above method is the best. its a real pita to cut box to fit & seal air tight around 'legs' of recessed cans, and in a lot of cases the can is next to joist & box can't fit in between. expanding foam (aka great stuff) covers but doesn't seal leakage sites. but it expands so much...that you can't see the leakage sites anymore. over time, the foam shrinks allowing more leakage. thus the mastic tape method of sealing. I use only Hardcast brand #1402 mastic tape from hvac supply. I also use the hardcast to seal supply boxes to ceilings from inside the house. (I say ceilings..because that is the average location of ductwork in my area) hardcast will seal the same in wall, or floor applications. see attached pic to view how it looks. easier than explaining! best of luck.

To follow up, the Juno lights as installed look good so far (although my kitchen is flooded with natural light right now, so I won't know for sure until it's dark out) - I took a chance but I love that there's an off/switch on each of the 3 bars (2 24's and 1 12) on the left hand side and a dimmer dial on the right, plus the on/off switch on the wall for all 3 (which are connected), so we can very much customize the amount of light is on and off each time we turn the switch on and off on the wall. or we can leave the wall switch on and use the on-bar controls. It's a lot more versatility than any other LED light that I've seen. And when on full blast the lights are pretty bright, and when dimmed they are pretty dim, so far. What I might do to get around the problem of having reflections on the shiny (Zodiaq cloud white) countertop, is use the stick-on diffusers provided with the environmental lights package, and put those on the Junos and not return them to environmental lights. One thing re environmental lights - they know their stuff, were VERY helpful and I'd love to work with them. I just prefer a dimmer dial. And Juno's customer service is not 24/7 like some electrical support shops - it's just M-F, which I didn't like as much. And the dimmer-dial LEDs we used aren't even on its website, for whatever reason. I tried to call its customer service line today to ask why they aren't on the website and make sure they still support them before deciding which to install - but they aren't available today (a Sunday). For what it's worth, the Juno bars we installed have a 5 year warranty and the environmental lights have a 3 year warranty. I'm not sure why the difference and it wasn't a big factor in deciding, but worthy of note.

Quoted/asked I also don't have the ballasts anymore Seeming as you already don't have them, discarded or for other reasons. Assuming you have 110 V- 117 V ( which every person I know does) somewhere in your home and want to use a 110 V electric source for power over 220 V you wont need a ballast to burn as many bulbs as you want It's an easy direct polar negative to polar positive wiring Ballast free wiring demo in pic If you don't already have ballast ( whihc you said you dont have)you may/will still need to check the fixtures for proper wiring Meaning if you want bulbs to work unfortunate you are going to have that party that you don't want to have Shows disconnecting VIA by passing the still usable ballast Note the bulb wording is directly wired to the positive and negative fixture The opposite side that use to be wired looks like this when finished re -wiring When ready to re-assemble the wired side will look like this re-place the shield and the removed screws loss lee (<< sp) first on both sides then tighten I have no possible way to show you the bulbs working (on) with an open cover ballast free becuse the cover has holes used to hang and hold the fixture(s) but if there where I would IMO all you need is close less is more ( sometimes) and usually works better your plants you don't need nothing fancy if you want fancy go for it grab a plasma lighting system ( a different party and that you don want to be at as well) isn't going to work very effectively at all for any winter dormant plant. IME @ 5000 K color I can over brightness ( burn) VIA use of the same bulbs you see in the demo wiring pics any attenuata haworthia in a few days, any epic type cacti and some of them arid guys as well. Go figure huh ? I'm only using a modest time of 12 hours with 4 LED 5000K bulbs being on per day from Mid October to early April My bulbs are only used underneath the sills which are two rather wide window sills @ 108 inches, three if you count the east side one that doesn't get any sun as of lately I often shift 3 tray filled succulents from under lights to one of the 2 short time winter sun filled sills moving the sill sitters to under lights. Simply don't forget to ventilate I use lights on fan as a rule during winter and cracking windows open on warmer winter days I can grow a potato on any of the S or SXSE sill over winter but will ( Ironically worded so pls excuse the pun) bake that same potato by late May early July if left there . Technically the potato I have is a relative of a yam and is currently breaking dormancy with ANY additional lighting