Lighting quest cheap as possible?? +rep need hep

i am currently using 2x 2 eco lux Plant & aquarium F-40 tubes they are rated for about 3050 lumens each
i have about 5 plants and i plan to grow then like trees starting at the second week after transplant (couple days to get over shock) take all the bottem leaves off and just have tops
im kinda iffy about using just these but if i do it this way and keep it a inch away at all times maybe they would suffice?

im horrible at math but my growspace would only be 1x1 ft maybe two (i like to round down makes me feel reassured) if i keep them close enough could i count as .5 idk what do you guys think?

Go with cfls if you're gonna have that small of a space. Sounds a little small for five plants tho if you want them to be trees. I had ten in a space about 6x3 and it was cramped so bad my lights couldn't penetrate. I would def use cfls tho for a small space and just try and put one branch on each plant in flower early before they get very big to weed out your males and then grow your females like trees. Cfls are cheap and you can mount them everywhere. Good luck hope this helps.

my space is more like 4x4 but im limited to about a 3ft height im gonna have to LST i was srsly considering lst scrog its gonna be unknown combination of technique but if i get a sativa im almost gonna have to

what i was shooting for was if this was gonna work for veg i was planning on buying a 150watt hps for flower but i really don't wanna spend anymore money this was just supposed to be a hobby/ time consumer till spring

Cfls or LEDS are the way to go in a space this tight
R they ina cab or closet or what?

Pics of ur setup would be great

its a cubby between the roof and the wall for storage

but do you think the lights i have will work if my calculations are correct i should have about 6k lumens but they never are so..

I have a similar space and if your going to put a hps in there for flowering you will need ventilation/Cool tube setup for sure

A single 150 watt HPS will take a few small plants through flowering, but if you're really running a full 2x2x3' space, then you can potentially use quite a bit more light than that.

Try a 250 or even a 400, and I think your overall yields will be quite a bit better. Obviously, they suck a lot more power, but the bigger HPS setups really don't cost all that much more in terms of setup/startup costs.

Even if you only use a 150, you're still going to need to cool/ventilate the space.

CFLs are inexpensive, when it comes to per-bulb cost, but you're going to need a heck of a lot of them to fill up a 4 foot square space, and once you start running 7, 8, or more of them, you're still going to need the same sort of cooling you'd need with a 150 watt HPS setup.

that is the problem right there the roof side of the room is at a incline probably a 45 degree angle so don't really have the full 4' another issue i expressed in another post was i really didnt have the option for ventilation i can't cut a hole in the crawlspace door can't cut a hole in the roof what whats going on in that room needs to be dealt with in that room odor heat cold, w/e

My test budroom is seven square feet, any less than 800 watts and it does not give consistant results. The plants still grow but cannot be counted on to respond the same to input. Kinda like a hungry human, behavior becomes more unpredictable even though their health is not yet affected.

It is a weed, a bud on top means it was grown correctly, the rest is quibbling over time and cost.

But in a small space, heat is the enemy that must be defeated.

A watt of heat from a CFL is 1000 degrees cooler than a watt of heat from an HPS. It is still just a watt but the higher temp causes the heat to penetrate the surroundings faster, giving the air less time to carry it away. Less powerful fans can be used with CFL's.