Spider Farmer Grow Light Review (JULY 2023)

Spider Farmer is one of the most well-known LED grow light manufacturers, founded in 2009. Besides LED grow lights, Spider Farmer produces a wide selection of indoor gardening supplies, such as grow tents, cooling fans, grow kits, and other plant-related accessories.

Spider Farmer is an official Samsung partner. Samsung provides high-quality LM301b LED diodes for Spider Farmer. Spider Farmer has local maintenance centers in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, and Thailand.

Spider Farmer Grow Lights are high-quality quantum board or bar grow lights for professional growers of indoor plants, cannabis, fruits, and vegetables, with excellent efficiency of over 2 ppfd/watt. They are also excellent grow lights for hobby plant growers who have a lot of plants. Let’s talk about the main characteristics of these lights: components, efficiency, light spectrum, coverage area, output, and safety.

Spider Farmer grow lights use high-quality Samsung LM301b diodes. The same diodes are used in much more expensive HLG (Horticulture Lighting Group) fixtures. The light also uses a dimmable driver. Unfortunately, you cannot keep the driver outside of the grow tent to lower the heat inside the tent, due to the short cable. You can unscrew the driver from the backing plate to provide a bit of thermal separation.

The efficiency of a grow light determines how good a grow light is in converting electrical energy into light useful for plant growth. Grow light efficiency is calculated by dividing the light output of a grow light by the energy it consumes. It’s expressed in umol/watt/s.

Spider Farmer lights have excellent efficiency, ranging from 1.96 to 2.46 umol/watt/s. Generally more expensive models have higher efficiency.

Spider Farmer lights are full-spectrum lights, that can be used during all stages of plant growth (seedling, vegetative, and flowering). Spider Farmer SF series lights (SF1000, SF2000, and SF4000) include a mix of 3000K and 5000K white diodes, with additional 660 nm deep red and 760 nm infrared diodes, that are supposed to reduce flowering time. Spider Farmer SE series lights include a mix of 2800-3200K and 4800-5000K white diodes, with additional 660 nm deep red.

As opposed to purple lights, which emit mostly blue light and red light, Spider Farmer emits light throughout the whole PAR spectrum (between 400 and 700 nm), as seen in the image below.

The Spider Farmer grow lights cover a large surface area, from 2×2 feet to 6×6 feet. This wide coverage is possible because the grow lights use large, flat quantum boards and bars. Because LED diodes are spread out over the whole surface of the board or bar, so the light doesn’t lose a lot of intensity by the time it reaches the edges of the coverage area.

A smaller grow light (such as many grow bulbs, or Rousseau grow light) puts out light from a small, narrow area. Since light intensity drops exponentially with the distance it travels, the light that reaches the edge of the coverage area loses a lot of its intensity. This means not a lot of light reaches the plants at the edge of the coverage area.

Spider Farmer grow lights are CE-certified, UL, ETL, and RoHS certified, which provides high confidence in the safety and quality of their products. CE certification means that products satisfy EU safety, health, and environmental protection requirements. UL certification means that Spider Farmer products pass safety standards created by UL (Underwriters Laboratory), which is one of the leading organizations for creating standards and performing product tests.

RoHS, stands for Restriction of Hazardous Substances and restricts the use of specific hazardous materials found in electrical and electronic products. ETL stands for Electrical Testing Laboratories. ETL certified means that parts and components and different types of spider farmer grow lights are in line with established standards.

Spider Farmer makes 2 types of grow lights – quantum board lights (SF series: SF1000, SF2000, SF4000, and SF7000) and bar lights (SE series: SE3000, SE5000, and SE7000 and G series: G3000, G4500, G5000, G8600, G1000W). I will review both types of lights in this article.

The SF1000 LED grow light is a high-quality quantum board light for your indoor garden. It offers a good full-spectrum light with high output per watt consumed. By adjusting the distance and duration of use, it caters to various plant light requirements, making it suitable for all house plants, fruits, vegetables, and cannabis at different growth stages.

SF1000 is dimmable. Previous models required you to remove the driver and adjust the screw, but that is no longer the case. There is now an easily accessible dimmer button, without the need to unscrew anything to find it.

For a detailed video review of Spider Farmer SF1000, watch the video below:

Installation of Spider Farmer LED grow lights is simple. You can hang it from a shelf, drill holes in the ceiling to hang the light, or use sticky ceiling hooks (the way it’s presented in the image below).

For the full installation process of Spider Farmer SF1000 light, watch the video below:

To use Spider Farmer SF1000 LED grow light on your low light tolerant plants, place it 3 feet above the plants, for 8 hours per day. This will provide 2.39 DLI of light. For medium light plants keep the grow light 3 feet away for 12 to 16 hours. This will provide 3.59 to 4.78 DLI of light. For bright light plants keep the light 2 feet away for 8 to 16 hours. This will provide 6.39 to 12.79 DLI of light.

For succulents and cacti, keep the light 1.5 feet or closer to your plants, for 16 hours per day, as shown in the diagram below. This will provide 20.45 DLI of light or more.

If you are not familiar with plant categorization according to their light requirements, see my table of light requirements by plant. The table shows which plants are low light tolerant, which have medium light requirements, and which have bright light requirements.

With Spider Farmer SF1000 LED grow light you can grow all house plants (low light tolerant, medium light, bright light, as well as succulents and cacti), fruits, vegetables, and cannabis, throughout all stages of plant growth (seedlings, vegetative, and flowering).

Spider Farmer SF2000, SF4000, and SF7000 are larger, more powerful versions of the SF1000 LED light. SF2000 is made by putting together two SF1000 lights and the SF4000 by putting together four SF1000 lights. Refer to the beginning of the article for more specifics on SF2000, SF4000, and SF7000.

If you’re deciding between the SF quantum lights or the SE bar lights, there really isn’t much difference. Both series are high-quality lights. SE bar lights have the slight advantage of having separate bars that allow air to flow through the fixture, which helps cool it. But that does not mean your grow room will be any cooler. The diodes and drivers will generate the same amount of heat and that heat will heat up your grow tent.

The Spider Farmer SE3000 LED grow light is a high-quality bar light with a good light spectrum and better heat dissipation than the SF series, due to its bar design that contributes to better air flow. Its dimming feature allows for flexibility in meeting different plant light requirements, making it suitable for all house plants, fruits, vegetables, and cannabis at various stages of growth.

For a detailed video review of Spider Farmer SE3000, watch the video below:

To use Spider Farmer SE3000 LED grow light on your low light tolerant plants, place it 3 feet above the plants, for 7 hours per day. This will provide 2.82 DLI of light. For medium light plants keep the grow light 3 feet away for 12 to 14 hours. This will provide 4.84 to 5.64 DLI of light. For bright light plants keep the light 2 feet away for 8 to 16 hours. This will provide 8.64 to 17.28 DLI of light.

For succulents and cacti, keep the light 1.5 feet to your plants, for 16 hours per day, as shown in the diagram below. This will provide 27.65 DLI of light.

If you are not familiar with plant categorization according to their light requirements, see my table of light requirements by plant. The table shows which plants are low light tolerant, which have medium light requirements, and which have bright light requirements.

With Spider Farmer SE3000 LED grow light you can grow all house plants (low light tolerant, medium light, bright light, as well as succulents and cacti), fruits, vegetables, and cannabis, throughout all stages of plant growth (seedlings, vegetative, and flowering).

Spider Farmer SE5000 and SE7000 are larger, more powerful versions of the SE3000 light. SE3000 has 4 bars, SE5000 has 6 and SE7000 has 8. Due to their size, SE500 and SE700 have a larger coverage area and use more power. Refer to the beginning of the article for specifics on these lights.

I’ve been growing indoor plants under grow lights for over 10 years. I have been using Spider Farmer SF-1000 for over 2 years. I also had a carnivorous plant business where I grew hundreds of plants under grow lights for several years. This helped me gain tremendous experience with different types of grow lights (fluorescent lights, fluorescent bulbs, LED grow lights, full-spectrum lighting…), how to measure their brightness, how to determine the proper distance between the light and the plant, and other details of growing house plants under grow lights.

I identified the key decision-making factors for these types of grow lights. I tested Spider Farmer SF-1000 and SE-3000 to determine how they measure for each of the factors and determined which situations they are best for. The key decision-making factors were: 1) brightness (PPFD) 2) Efficiency 3) wattage (power consumption) 4) coverage 5) unique features that set it apart from the competition and 6) warranty.

Spider Farmer grow lights are top-tier quantum board and bar grow lights designed for professional indoor plant growers, cannabis cultivators, and enthusiasts cultivating fruits, vegetables and house plants. These lights boast an good efficiency of over 2 ppfd/watt, making them a preferred choice for both commercial and hobby plant growers with a large collection of plants.