I just finished assembling my lighting setup which includes 11 CFL's and four fluorescent tubes. The total number of watts comes to 668, and the total number of lumens comes to about 48,000 lumens. The grow space is six square feet. Will this amount of light suffice? Thanks in advance
So long as the 6 sq ft is the actual light coverage, it will suffice, poorly.. in fact I urge you to consider an extra 4 flouro tubes, and use the cfl's as supplementary . peace "V"
its more than the lights you would buy at the LHS per square foot coverage... Im saying your solid if you are going 4' x 1.5'. An 8 lamp T5 setup from a grow shop covers 8 (they are 4' x 2') square feet and puts out only 40000 lumens tops, so you are stronger than that by quite a bit. More CFL's wouldnt hurt of course. Is that your configuration? It matters a lot how the lights are arranged so being more specific would help. You just have to keep the plants completely under the light. No stretching the grow space. This is a light for 4 plants in a line. And keep em relatively short.
You can't see the four fluorescent tubes, however they are directly above the CFL's. Would it be absolutely necessary to add more CFL's to the sides of the plants or could I get by with just this?
get the plants closer and you wont "need" to do much else... but are those 2700k bulbs? should be daylight bulbs for veg really.
The CFL's are all 2700k and the fluorescent tubes are 6500k. I read that it can be beneficial to use both temperatures during veg and flower. Is that incorrect?
not incorrect. if you were devoid of 6500k in veg it might be a concern, i dont really know... i know my peppers never cared, but people swear by the blue light veg red light flower stuff. im sure youll be fine if those tubes are daylight bulbs, but def shim those pots to as close as you can get them without burning them. Real close.