I've been making preperations to turn one of my unused closets into a grow room, not anything crazy, just want to be able to grow personals. Right now I am really trying to get it going without investing a ton of money. I've got my hands on several books and read a ton of the threads on this site so I think I have a decent idea of how to proceed with everything except my lights. I'm pretty big into reef aquariums, and am looking to use my light fixtures that I already own rather than purchase another right off the bat. But right now I only have a couple compact flourescent/power compact light fixtures that aren't in use. I have a dual 65 Watt fixture and a dual 24 watt fixture (each bulb is 65/24 so overall light is 130w/48w). The obvious reason being that I already own them and just need to grab some new bulbs so the cost is minimal. But on top of that the larger one has a built in fan that does a great job of keeping the entire fixture cool, and it would be super easy to set them on an adjustable frame or something above the plants rather than having to hang it. Other than that, I have kept many corals and saltwater vegetation alive and thriving with these so I am confident in their functionailty and overall safety. My main issue with this is the availabily of bulbs, 6500K are easy to get ahold of, but they don't make them (as far as I know) in any lower temperatures. So i know that I'm going to need to find another light source for flowering, or find someone who makes the correct bulbs for these fixtures which isn't looking too promising. So i guess my question is this. Do you guys think its worth using these lights to get my plants going and vegging, and picking up some other lights (most likely just CFL bulbs in clamp on reflectors) to use when flowering. Or am I going to end up investing too much time setting up lights that ultimately will provide a sub par environment? I haven't seen much talk of these types of lights being used. Any input is appreciated. I attached a pic of the fixtures.
I run T5 for my veg, but if you ask anybody that's used both, HID HPS is a MUST for flower, t5's will produce light fluffy buds unless you have bulbs all over the plant. HID can shine from above, set it and forget it. Check out my thread (link below) for a good example of a t5 grow setup and a flowering closet.
I'm not familiar with those particular lights, but they sound like regular fluoros that are just sold for aquarium use. If that's the case, they should be fine. Like hl said, you are going to need something stronger for flowering. But those will work just fine for veg. HTH