T8 Fluorescent bulbs

Ok so here's my problem. I'm pretty much a noob when it comes to growing..My grow actually just started out as a small experiment, but then my plant took off! I started off under 1 24" cool white fluorescent that I had sitting around (dumb I know) but once it started looking really healthy I decided to try to make something of it. The first I planted was just some bagseed but once I decided to take it a little more seriously I potted a couple of lemon diesel seeds I got from a friend. Now when the first plant started looking well I went out and bout 6500k 24 t8 bulb to replace the cool white bulb. Then when I added the two new seeds I added another 6500k t8 18". I also have a 500 watt halogen bulb but I really didn't know if halogen bulbs would count (again I know I'm a noob). Could really use some insight on my lighting situation. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated. I look forward to passing on any knowledge I gain on here to other users as to contribute to the community

Halogen bulbs are in the wrong light frequency and pretty useless for growing.

You are going to need some bulbs at 2700k or as close as you can get, these are what the plant needs in it's flowering stage, you will want to have mostly these red spectrum bulbs in rather than the 6400k ones during the flowering,

Got any ventilation in there? Couple of fans would be good if you haven't already, suck air in and blow it out

Yea I have an osculating fan in there and open the door (it's in a walk in closet) whenever I'm home and it's not during it's dark hours. I guess what my real question is, that I'm wondering if I have enough lighting power to support 3 plants. I've heard some people say that fluorescent bulbs cause loose nugs and not a very good yield. I would hate to put all this work into it to have little to show when it comes time to harvest. Again any help would be greatly appreciated.

You will definitely need some more lights. Its early now, so 3 or 4 bulbs is fine, but once those plants start hitting the flower cycle, your gonna need 3 or 4 bulbs per plant at the very least. Most people use Compact Fluorescent instead of tubes because CFLs, you can find in pretty high wattage (from 8 all the way up to 65 watts at my local hardware store and up to 250 in the hydro store) and are more space efficient.

More light, more bud.

So are you saying I would need 3 or 4 tubes lights per plant? Would it take less cfls if they were higher wattage?

The nice thing about CFLs is that they are a smaller brighter light source. You can concentrate that light onto your plant ... hard to do with the long tubes that have low surface brightness. 100 watts of CFL are better plant lighting than the 500-watt "work light" halogen bulb. cn

Yea someone already informed met hat the halogen bulb was pretty much worthless..So would I be able to support 3 adult plants with the fluorescent lights that I already have plus like 4 or 5 40 watt cfls? (true wattage)

Yea that should be enough if you keep them on the small side. In fact, if you look up the book 'Buds for Less' the author walks you through a complete grow using only a couple CFL bulbs, sorta like what you would do. Its very possible and do-able, but like I said, more light just means more bud.

Thanks again! Very helpful!

Does anyone know anything about wattage per sq. foot or per plant?