Cheapest lights you have purchased to successfully overwinter floating pond plants indoors for 6+ months?

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My pond coverage is finally at 100% and I am really happy with the way it is looking, however I'm in Vermont and it's the end of the season and it is all going to die very soon.

I'd like to attempt once again to try to overwinter some of this inside but so far none of the lighting that I have attempted to use has been successful at overwintering these floating plants.

I'm also about $13,000 in debt and I don't really have the money to buy quality lights so I'm here trying to find out what is the cheapest way that everyone has successfully managed to overwinter floating plants inside over the winter. I'm not opposed to real redneck solutions like aluminium clamp droplights with floodlight bulbs in them, just the bulbs need to be under $15.

Note: I'm in Vermont and winter means greater than 6 months inside.

Plants in question are frogbit, red root floaters, salvinia.

20240927_153733.jpg
 
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Do you have an aquarium that you can put some of it into?
I have overwintered two of the plants you mention successfully back when living way up north in the tundra. It is relatively easy in an aquarium. Keeping them going in a tub takes dedication. Not a 'plug and play' situation. Are you thinking of overwintering them in a tub of some kind?
Regarding lighting needed if you are using a container:
Try for a south or west window where sunlight will illuminate the tub. A shop light should work well in addition to window light. Air movement and nutrients are very important. You will have to watch the leaves closely for yellowing signs of stress or nutrient deficiency. In the spring, the plants have to be slowly acclimated to your pond. That is another topic if you are interested.
In the end, you will enjoy your plants in the pond a couple, perhaps three weeks earlier than if you just obtained new plants in the spring.
 
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Do you have an aquarium that you can put some of it into?
I have overwintered two of the plants you mention successfully back when living way up north in the tundra. It is relatively easy in an aquarium. Keeping them going in a tub takes dedication. Not a 'plug and play' situation. Are you thinking of overwintering them in a tub of some kind?
Regarding lighting needed if you are using a container:
Try for a south or west window where sunlight will illuminate the tub. A shop light should work well in addition to window light. Air movement and nutrients are very important. You will have to watch the leaves closely for yellowing signs of stress or nutrient deficiency. In the spring, the plants have to be slowly acclimated to your pond. That is another topic if you are interested.
In the end, you will enjoy your plants in the pond a couple, perhaps three weeks earlier than if you just obtained new plants in the spring.
I have an aquarium but it does not have a light so I need a recommendation for an effective light. The aquarium light I had previously died (led light bar) and wasn't strong enough to keep plants alive.

None of my windows get more than an hour of direct sunlight, and that's not helping the problem any: none face west. The south ones get an hour or two of filtered sun from about 10am to noon. I pretty much need to provide enough lighting to not need any sun. I live in a ravine, most of my windows abut a cliff.
 
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I hesitate to move pond plants into an aquarium unless you are certain no 'hitch hikers' are attached. You can disinfect the plants. Plenty on this site and other sites on how to do that. How large is the aquarium and what's in it? You might be able to share a cheap light. A good shop light with wide spectrum plant bulbs might be enough light for your floaters in a tub. I have never only used artificial lighting for overwintering these plants. But I have successfully kept them in an aquarium with T5 plant and LED plant lights. The fish provided much of the nutrients but I still had to add supplements. Unless you really want to do this as a winter project, I would just compost the plants when nature takes its course. Given your situation, being in debt as mentioned, you will spend much more in energy and plant nutrients than returned for your investment. I would just obtain new starters in the spring for a few bucks.
 

JRS

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As my T8 and T12 aquarium lights have died I have replaced them with a variety of cheap LED shop lights and grow lights depending on the the tank size.

This is a nice smaller light I have used: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Va...9?classType=REGULAR&athbdg=L1200&from=/search

In addition to light, humidity is essential to maintain a lot of plants over winter. Without a covered container the leaves often wither due to the low humidity. I do not bother anymore myself unless I can fit them into an aquarium with a lid.
 
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As my T8 and T12 aquarium lights have died I have replaced them with a variety of cheap LED shop lights and grow lights depending on the the tank size.

This is a nice smaller light I have used: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Va...9?classType=REGULAR&athbdg=L1200&from=/search

In addition to light, humidity is essential to maintain a lot of plants over winter. Without a covered container the leaves often wither due to the low humidity. I do not bother anymore myself unless I can fit them into an aquarium with a lid.
Can't beat the price of that light! Yep, humidity and also air movement.
 
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I hesitate to move pond plants into an aquarium unless you are certain no 'hitch hikers' are attached. You can disinfect the plants. Plenty on this site and other sites on how to do that. How large is the aquarium and what's in it? You might be able to share a cheap light. A good shop light with wide spectrum plant bulbs might be enough light for your floaters in a tub. I have never only used artificial lighting for overwintering these plants. But I have successfully kept them in an aquarium with T5 plant and LED plant lights. The fish provided much of the nutrients but I still had to add supplements. Unless you really want to do this as a winter project, I would just compost the plants when nature takes its course. Given your situation, being in debt as mentioned, you will spend much more in energy and plant nutrients than returned for your investment. I would just obtain new starters in the spring for a few bucks.
How many T5 bulbs did your aquarium hood have in it? Were they standard T5 or T5HO bulbs?

The aquarium is currently outside in my garden turned upside down over my acorn squash because I had something eating my squash before they grew all the way so I thought it perhaps might allow me to get a couple of more acorn squash before the season ended.

The aquarium previously housed my fancy guppies but I picked up fish tuberculosis somewhere along the way and all my fish died years ago and since you can't really sanitize anything well enough to get rid of fish tuberculosis the aquarium cannot be used for fish anymore so I've just been using it to cover plants in the garden ever since (sort of like a terrarium). I believe it is a 20 gallon long tank. It's about 1x1x2'. It uses a 24 inch light fixture. I did skim through aquarium hoods and lights briefly on Amazon and was able unable to find anything that I could afford to purchase at this point. Even the T5HO bulbs themselves, a single bulb is more than I really have the money to spend on this. Plus the fixtures are hundreds. I'm looking for sub$50 solutions.
 
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As my T8 and T12 aquarium lights have died I have replaced them with a variety of cheap LED shop lights and grow lights depending on the the tank size.

This is a nice smaller light I have used: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Va...9?classType=REGULAR&athbdg=L1200&from=/search

In addition to light, humidity is essential to maintain a lot of plants over winter. Without a covered container the leaves often wither due to the low humidity. I do not bother anymore myself unless I can fit them into an aquarium with a lid.
That is exactly what I was hoping to find! Thank you for the link, this will do. I have pieces of acrylic laying around so it's easy for me to cut a piece to cover the top of the tank to keep the humidity (and hatching mosquitoes) in (and the cats out).

I was also thinking that I would probably have to run an aquarium heater too, since I let the house get down to below 50° at night time, sometimes closer to 40° since I like it to be cold when I'm sleeping.
 
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Gosh, what @JRS posted is a tremendous deal at less than $20 bucks.. Not sure how they compare to T5's. If you are really serious about doing this I can dig out a feature I wrote about this about 15 years ago. It will take me some time to do it. I described the type of lighting which at this time I can't recall if it was T5 or T5HO or a combination of something else. I can say for certain that it would have been most difficult (and expensive) without the West picture window blasting in hours of sunlight. But if money is a concern I would skip this project. Do you know any other pond owners in your area? Perhaps they will share some of their floaters in the spring with you. I always did. Any extra went to my turtle pond.
 
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If you have a small pond, might be less expensive to buy plants next season. Buy fast growing plants. The year I tried over-wintering inside my garage in addition to light I found water movement would have been necessary - it became very smelly and things started to die. I'm a newbie compared to others on this forum who may have better information.
 
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I use 4 foot long shop lights with full spectrum bulbs in them for getting my garden plants started over winter. Not expensive and lots of light. I've also used one over a 50 gallon aquarium. Worked well.
 

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