are my lights too far?

i have a t-5 setup with 4 blue 54 watt bulbs and 4 red 54 watt bulbs i recently moved them closser but i dont if should go closer or not opinions?

Yes, you can move them closer. You can usually keep fluorescents around 3" from the plants as long as they're not emitting a lot of heat. If you keep them too far away your plant will stretch towards the light and grow a very weak stem. If the lights are too close then you'll start to cause heat stress and light burn to your plants. Good luck on your grow man.

Id say thats not too far away with that light set up. If you have a thermo put you lights closer and see how warm it is. If it reaches anywhere over 82F at the tops of the plants then raise the light a little to where its 76-78F. Your fine man

thanks, i dont think i can rais it anymore until i get a humidifyer or find another way to bring the temp down as it sits its at 80

if you can put your hand where you want your plant to be and it feels warmer than warm it is too close, you want your plants as close to the lights as possible without burning them

what i have picked up on about my lights is that they need to be between 3 and 12 in from the pot
and that t-5's are only ideal for veg?
correct me if im wrong

Yeah they are pretty much most efficient an vegn but not flowering.

i would have the lights about 3 to 4 inches away.

this is my final height adjustment, what do you think?

LOL....you can get close with them but I dont know about that. Just make sure you use the back of your hand method to see if its too hot

failed to mention the pots are 3/4 full, distance from dirt to light is about 10 in

Lol, well if they stretch a little, you can always bury the stem then. If you worried about humidity, you can place some wet paper towels in your pots. It works fairly well for seedlings and doesn't really cost anything.

paper towels? where would i put them at in the pot

You'll see, they'll still stretch to get closer with the lights that close.. seedling love light.

Stoneded said:

You'll see, they'll still stretch to get closer with the lights that close.. seedling love light.

Click to expand...

so what your saying is they stretch for light when they are too far and they stretch when they are too close?
dosent make sense to me

my t5s were useless, they veg ok but cfls worked better, I finally went out and got a 400wHPS but it isn't making much difference with the metal halide conversion bulb in it. One plant is growing ok but the other 3 are small and stalled so I put em back under the t5's to try to get them to start growing...idk what the issue is...

my only issue with the t5 is i dont know the correct distace to keep it from my plants