5 week old plant that looks like a 3 or 4 wk old plant....

Ok, so this is my first time growing, and i chose to go indoors with it. We had 15 plants growing in a small area. We were using 2 fluorescent grow lights plus a regular fluorescent, all 3 were about 2 ft. in length. We had this lighting up until about 2 days ago. 6 were in 6 inch pots and the rest were in 2-liter bottles with tops cut off. We did line the area with aluminum foil, placed a fan in there, and brought in a reg house bulb to add some heat. Realizing this was obviously not enough, we switched to 3 gallon buckets (mop buckets) and bought 2 120 watt spot-grow lights, moved 5 to another room in which we are continuing to use the reg fluorescent and the 2 grow fluorescents (they are younger than the others) on them. All the plants are only about 6 inches tall and seem to have weak stems. Is this because we didn't have a good lighting source from the start? They just don't seem to be as big as they should be. The stems are thin and it doesn't seem to be splitting off into branches...help me!

Those look more like two weeks then 3 or 4 weeks to be honest. You need wayyyyy more light. If your usuing flourescents they should be inches away from the plants to be effective. Consider a 400 watt hps

the ones in the pictures are the ones that are receiving the 2 120 watt spot grow lights...there are 9 plants in that area. But they've only been receiving this lighting for about 2 days. the other 5 are the ones with the fluorescents over them, they are only about 3 weeks old and the lights are only inches about them. I know it's confusing because I have two grow areas. So, i noticed some people start flowering around week 6...obviously mine are not ready for that. if i continue to let these plants veg, will they get better? I'm mostly concerned about the 9 under the 2 120 watt spot grows b/c they are older...or should i just flower at week 6 or so and just start over?

I would think the pots are too big for them at the moment but what do I know im pretty green at this aswell and maybe try lowering the lites move em closer to the plants

...I use flourescents for veg, just give them some time and put the light 2-3 inches form the tops of your plants. A fan will beef up your stalks if your not using one already.

I say I am on my first grow because I threw away 10 plants that were 6 weeks old and about the size of yours before I found these boards and started reading. In retrospect I didnt need to throw them out I just needed to start doing it right. I wasnt watering correctly, I didnt have enough light among other things. I am on a budget so I added a ton of CFL Lights 23 watt 6500k for vegging switched to 2700k for flowering. I have 7 girls that have improved a ton since I found this board so keep reading! It'll Help!

~Lady

I wouldn't flower your plants until you see your first set of 7 feathered leaves.

Thanks for all the advice...this is the first batch, so i guess it's all about trial and error...think next time we're gonna try to go hydroponic.

i'm hoping these pots are fine...we had to transplant them out of the two-liters b/c they were getting root bound. The roots were actually rather long.