proper lighting

so I'm kind of broke right now - I know, bad decision to grow if I am. The local hydroponics shop has 48" tube fluorescent grow bulbs, but they're $17 a bulb. I can afford them, but I'd rather wait until my next paycheck. I have tons of normal white fluorescents for cupboards and closets and shit. Will those work in the meantime?

mcbaken said:

so I'm kind of broke right now - I know, bad decision to grow if I am. The local hydroponics shop has 48" tube fluorescent grow bulbs, but they're $17 a bulb. I can afford them, but I'd rather wait until my next paycheck. I have tons of normal white fluorescents for cupboards and closets and shit. Will those work in the meantime?

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Broke and proper lighting don't mix.

But for seedling/clones/veggin, nope. no prob. Flowering is where you need to spend the cash.

Your regular fluoros would probably work to start seedlings, but I think your growth would be pretty slow unless you had a lot of them.

I would check to see what kind of ballast that grow shop light needs, that price sounds like the price for a t5.

If money is real tight, 6500k cfls are pretty good for starting plants off. 2-100w equivalents 6500k (daylight) are only $7.44 at walmart.

buy some 6k 23 watt cfls they should get you through vegging

two t8 shop lights would work really well with 6500k lights