I have a couple nice plants growing hydro but I'm short of cash at the moment and can't afford a legit lighting setup for the flowering stage. They're only under a few florescent lights right now which has been fine for the vegetative growth but would these work at all to produce buds under a flowering light cycle? I know it wouldn't make great buds like a HPS light but would it make sellable buds to turn a profit to go into a better lighting setup?
They'll work, you just don't get the light penetration with them that you will with HPS but as long as you keep the cfls close and add a whole bunch( idk how many you got up, but add some anyways ) then you should be good! Make sure you switch spectrums for flower too!
Does 6 four foot bulbs sound like enough? I'm using 4 right now for the veg and they're doing fine. What's changing the spectrum?
^Doesn't have to be those specs exactly, anything 2700k to 3000k is good for flower but you still want some balance so don't completely exclude the 5500-7000k lights either. Or you could go with all red spectrum fluros (2700k-3000k) and supplement with 26w repti-glo lights, which add blue spectrum. The blue spectrum is good during flowering for density and frostiness.