what to do with my setup?!?!

hey everyone,

I have a question about my setup...I have 19 plants that I am currently vegging...however as far as lighting goes I am way inadequate (1 24in fluerescent and 4 13 watt CFL's). This is my first time and I am only vegging so many plants because I had alot of seeds and wanted to make sure they germinated so I planted way to many thinking only a few would germinate.

Here is my question tho, should I just throw like 15 or so of them away? (they are only about 5 inches tall). By doing this im assuming the remaining plants would benefit from the extra light?

would it be a bad idea to keep them all in there for another month right before i start to flower and by then it should be warm enough outside for them to grow naturally. Bad idea or good idea?

Lastly, would it be possible for me to keep them all alive in my closet until they begun to flower and I could tell the sex of the plant? I really just dont want to throw away like 15 plants and then have all the remainder turn out to be males. In total I really am looking to only fully grow like 3 plants. Please let me know some of your opinions...CHEERS

Throw 18 away or buy more lights

is that necesary this early? Will it stunt my other plants if I dont? If I wanted to grow 3 or 4 of them what would be the proper lighting? (using CFL's)

You would get much better answers with pics so that everyone can make better judgements. How much room do the plants take up,(square feet)? Usually people say that you should have at least 3000 lumens per square foot. The 13 watt lights you have I believe put out 825 lumens each, which gives you a total of 3300 lumens. As for your 24in fluoro, if it's one of those grow lights from Walmart it's 17 watts and probably doesn't put out more than 1000lumens max. I would buy a couple more work lights, buy 3 Y connectors for each fixture, and then buy 2 four pack of 100 watt equivalants at 2700K which will give you another 12800 lumens for a total of 16800 lumens. The light fixtures are about $6 each, the 4 pack of bulbs(great value green box) are like 6 or $7, and the Y connectors are $1.90 each, which means you'll be putting out another 38 -$40... That's if you want to go with Cfl's. As for the amount of plants you have...yes you'll probably have to get rid of some. With 16800 lumens you shouldn't go any bigger than 2.5ftX2.5ft.

thx for some of the replies....here are some pictures of my setup (pics taken a few days ago) since then I have added one other light in the middle. The shelf in the one picture with the fan on it I plan on raising it as the plant grows if necesary. Its a closet so I have probally close to 8feet vertical height to grow in.

so def throw out some of the plants now?!?