my plant is about a foot and a half tall and i have another that is about a foot tall...I have a 4-socket fixture with 4 26W compact fluoros, producing 1700 lumens each...how far should they be from my plants?? and also a buddy of mine told me to line the inside of my grow box with aluminum foil, is this practical, or is it just a bad idea??
get those lights about 3 inches from ur plants, but also get a fan blowin on em it will keep em cool enough not to burn
If you're concerned about low temps in your box alu foil = a good idea. Painting the inside of the box flat white does wonders too. I'll personally guarantee you painting is A WHOLE LOT faster then sticky taping aluminium foil to a box. Since you are still busy building the box you may also want to mount the CFL fixtures horizontally instead of vertically. This so the plant 'sees' more surface area of the CFL. You can mount them on a wooden square made of four planks nailed together at the ends.
i don't wanna spend alot of money, so if the foil isn't as good as that other stuff, but better than nothing, it will do fine...also, the box is just a frame wrapped in poly wrap and black garbage bags, lol..and my fixture is 4 sockets all in a line, so horizontal mounting may not be as practical of an option, unless i mounted it sideways to the back wall of the box...
Not to discourage you from growing or anything but I personally wouldn't dare use so much thin plastics around an electrical installation that heats up. One spark from either the electric installation or from static electricity and your house burns down to the ground. Such plastics ignite really really REALLY well....and once on fire it will drip like burning oil.....and it will produce DEADLY smoke if inhaled. (By God DO NOT clean the tent with rag and a commercial cleaning agent.) People always think that people who sufficate in a fire do so because of lack of oxygen. This is untrue because if is there is no oxygen there would be no fire, in truth is the thick toxic smoke from plastics which can kill with only a few breaths. In such a case you'd be better off playing with enriched plutonium. If you are so poor that you cannot get your hands on 6 pieces of wood you should go out and steal it. (OMG what am I saying?) I strongly advise you to replace those plastics with wood. Thicker = better. It's very hard to ignite a 1 foot diameter wooden log but its very easy to ignite a sheet of paper made out of the same wood.
the plastic is going to be covered with aluminum foil...and my growbox will be in the shed, so if that burns down, i don't give a fuck, i'd be more pissed about losing my plants, lol...cause the shed is a piece of shit...