is it ok to use three 23 watt cfls to grow one plant?

Nope.... many marijuana pot plants can take up to 100,000 lumens. Sativas stretch. your one light needs to be more potent or else you will not find what you're looking for.

I've used CFL's sucessfully (so far) but used 150 watt equivalents not 23 watt.
Actually I rigged up a hanging light fixture with three sockets and put two 150 watts and one 100 watt (daylight spectrum type) and dropped it close to 4 plants and they vegged out pretty good...no complaints. Am budding out now with HPS tho....

I did an experiment once and grew an Indica, from beginning to end, using one 23 watt cfl. I think it produced like 3 or 5 grams, It can be done, but like ChronicO says, you may be disappointed.

I'm sure it will work but you probably aren't going to get a significant yield...CFL'S are nice because they run fairly cool....I have one plant right now with 13 cfl's on er' for a total of around 300 actual watts...She's Mc Lovin' it too. has been extremely healthy and happy so far through the whole grow :shrugs:

steal an idea from www.pcgrowcase.com
dont buy one from them. they basically tell you everything you need to buy to do a cfl low budget grow. every thing can picked up @ home depot.

veg with a couple $15 4 foot fluorescent tubes from lowes or home depot. get 2 or 3, 1 on each side and one for the top(optional really, i just put them at more of a 45 degree angle pointing down at their tops. you can easily grow 4 or 5 plants a pretty good length if you trained them to grow around the pot and make them bushy and flower them outside and let them straighten out. ive done it and it works out fine, you can get plenty of clones too and you use a lot less energy.

You can wire up another 4 bulbs (100w actual) for $20, tutorial in my sig.

thanx people,
i also have 3 100 watt soft white bulbs would that work?

yes it would

just add 1 at a time to see how temps go.

Possible? Of course. I offer proof that it can be done, but will be disappointing. I grew 2 plants each one under it's own 50/100/150W 3-Way incandescent bulb...yep, just regular old bulbs. These weeds will grow under a wide variety of conditions.

theyll grow under any light whether its the sun or one cfl, but veg should only take so long and growth is prolonged by a few weeks depending on how many lumen your putting out(weed grows the best out doors, 3 weeks of veg will get them about a foot and a half outdoors but under one cfl it may take a month or two. try to get some cheap hps if you can set aside the money, theres light stores in your town and they wont rob you since they think your lighting up a grocery store rather than some illegal plants.

i grow with 3 26w soft whites(GE's), you can get good results if well positioned don't expect a ton, but i'm able to squeeze out an oz of dry buds in good grows(i.e. productive strains)