Quote Originally Posted by headshake
you shouldn't so much worrry how tall you can get your plant because CFLs have terrible penetration.
That assumes that the lights are all together at top. That's something that my system of lighting allows me to easily overcome. I can string them up and down the plant, to allow the light to have some 3" from the bottom leaf, and also have lights within 3" of the top of the plant even if the plant is 3ft tall.

Right now I have 4890 lumens/ft^2, I think. A little low, but I read I need more than 3000, and 5000 is optimum.
Smurph Reviewed by Smurph on . Budget/Refrigerator grow The Situation: I have a side-by-side refrigerator that currently does not work, but I can't do any damage (i.e. cut vent holes) to it because its going to get fixed eventually. The Box: Approximate Interior Dimensions (for the side we're using for this): 59" tall (we'll call it 5ft) 18" wide 24" deep So that's 3sq ft on the bottom, and according to a post in the lighting section, I want 5000lumens/sq ft which is 15,000lumen total. Rating: 5