I hate to be the bearer of bad news but, those "grow lights" aren't actually grow lights. I have seen those before when I first started doing my LED research and delved a little deeper into them. First of all the amount of lumens put out by a single light is next to nothing when talking about growing plants. Second, those LEDs aren't even close to te wavelengths needed for optimal growth. When I say aren't even close I mean someone just took some blue LEDs without looking at the wavelength and so red LEDs and wired them to a board. I don't have all the numbers at hand anymore, the Procyon 100 is about the best LED grow light you can buy. It comes as close to the spectrum needed for plant growth as you can get but even it is still off a bit. Growing properly with LEDs is going to ream you out the ass when it comes to cash. The proper LEDs needed are some of the MOST expensive on the market. I have seen the argument that LEDs are way more energy efficient than HPS/MH/T5. That efficiency drops dramatically if you don't have the correct spectrum and also drops dramatically once you achieve the correct spectrum. This is b/c the LEDs that are needed are no where near as efficient as the white high power 1-5 watt LEDs that put out 100 lm/watt. You would be lucky to achieve 70-90 lm/watt with the correct LEDs.
Simply put, LEDs are not where it is at right now. Give it a few years and it may be there. China recently manufactured a 2 inch x 2 inch 200 watt diode that boasts and INCREDIBLE 200,000 lumens. Unfortunatley EACH of these diodes cost over $1,000,000, thats right 1 MILLION US DOLLARS, now this includes the cost of research and development of these diodes. The cost to create them is negligible BUT you won't be able to purchase them cheap b/c of the amount of money that went into designing them. To top it off these diodes ran for only a short amount of time (no longer than 24 hours each) before they burnt out.
I am not discouraging experimentation with LEDs, just trying to educate those who really want to start growing with them. You cannot be cost efficient and still grow with LEDs as they are now.

Looking for a good alternative to LEDs that don't put out much heat and are still reasonably efficient, go with T5's. You can purchase a 432 watt system that emits 40k lumens for 200-300 US dollars. The great thing about T5's, you can put them 2-5 INCHES away from your plants and as we all know, lumens degrade at a distance square to your light right? Well put you light that close to your plants and you will be using nearly ALL 40k lumens which is more than enough for two plants. Also, T5's have the best spectrum for growing plants. 2700k and 6500k almost dead on hit the two peaks of cannabis plants which are roughly 425 nm and 660 nm (this is the combined photosynthesis of all the pigments). Also T5's unlike MH and HPS run cool. I ran a CFL setup for my last grow and they ran so cool I could put my cheek to them. Try that with an HPS/MH.
Paht_Hed Reviewed by Paht_Hed on . LED Grow: 1st grow, 56W max, Northern Lights Ok, this is my first ever serious grow, meaning I actually know what I'm doing. As well, I have a green thumb so it isn't my first plant grown. It will be under LED lights, going up to a maximum of 64W using "china panels" according to stealth (you'll see them in the pics). For nutes, I'm using Botanicare's Bloom Pro, Liquid Karma and Gro Pro. Pre-mixed nutes: http://www.snapdrive.net/files/470781/Grow/pre_nutes.JPG L>R:bloom, gro, and a tiny bottle for foliar spraying the seedling all Rating: 5