Fluorescent Lights

In our basement we have a stand with fluorescent grow lights. They're kept on nearly all year except for a two or so months in the summer and have been fantastic. I use them for just about everything from starting seeds to reviving any unhappy plants elsewhere in the house. Just yesterday we went out to the hardware store to get some new lights for the upper tier of the lighting system which we just opened up the other day after totally running out of room with just the bottom one. The shelf was made so that a second level of grow lights could be installed but we had never needed to use it before. When the upper lights were turned on we noticed the lights were the kind of you would find in an office and were not as suited for plants as the ones made for "plants and Aquariums". Upon doing a little researching I found that the only kinds of light plants really need is blue and red. Blue promotes leaf growth and vegetation while red combined with the blue promotes flowering. The special tube fluorescent lights defiantly have a noticeably redder, warmer and in general much more pleasant hue to them. We got these kind of lights for the bottom level of lights a few months earlier and while I don't have any real evidence that they helped the plants I highly suggest switching to this kind of lights if you haven't already.