T12 Fluorescents

Well I am very new here, I am getting ready for my first attempt at indoor cultivation, but I have hit a few road blocks. I have seen alot of info on indoor lighting and what not, though it seems that every thing I read has an article some where that says in wont work or it isnt good. So to get to the point, I want to grow useing 4 or 5, T12 Fluorescents
with cool white bulbs, 48" in length, 40 watts each bulb. A total of 8 bulbs with a 320 watt / 400 watt maximum. Can this be done? if so how many plants can I grow? any other recomendations on a T12 or very low budget setup?


Thanks for your time


- The Jackal

also I have seen these other bulbs for the T12 called ecolux, one of which produces over 3000 lumens

I use T12s ( shop lights ) for sprouts, they provide plenty of light to get my plants up to about 6 inches. The problem with T12s is that once you start flowering, the light penetration is not enough to be worth messing with.

If you are going to use t-12's definately get the bulbs made for plants. I would reccomend cfl's over floro tubes though because it is easier to adjust the lights and get them closer to your plants where it counts. I think that you could grow maybe 2-3 plants under there but you should really try to get as much light as you can. Maybe supplement this set up with some extra cfl's around the sides. Just remember you are going to be losing alot of the light you are using because your plants won't really cover the entire 4 ft space unless you are growing too many plants for the space. good luck and let us know how it goes.

Ok well I planned on throwin some cfl's in their eventually, but I have heard of people growing useing only 2000 lumens. So I calculated it as if I was to use these ecolux daylight bulbs and with for fixtures and eight bulbs I would have a total of 24,000 lumens, auctually a little more, somwhere around 25 thousand. I have also seen people changing light spetrums when it came flowering time, although I may just end up buying a MH / HPS 400 watt plugin ballast by the time veg is done anyway. I just want to be able to go the cheapest route I can as of now, and still maintian a decent crop.


Thanks


-The Jackal

Man i have tried several times to turn out a decent crop using 4 t-12's. It never seems to work out. The hps/mh is just so much better. It seems impossible to grow tight dense buds with flouro tubes.