new floresent light?

I have a new florescent 2' w/8 26w 6500k bulbs. What is the distance range to the plane for this light to be effective?

Get the light as close to the plant as you can, start around 3-4 inches above the plant and move closer once it is clear that the plant is comfortable. another way to check the distance is to hold your hand an inch away from the light, if your hand is comfortable after 1 minute then your plant should be too. If not, move it away slightly and try again.

The hand test is a great test. I use it all the time. With flouros, you've got to be as close as possible because they die down in lumens SUPER quick. I believe your saying you've got a 2ft long ballast with 8 bulbs in it? If that's the case, (what I'd do) is build a box around that, and use that as one of your walls, put CFLs at the top, and you've got yourself a nice little micro grow. BTW If you are planning on flowering with that, you are going to have to change the bulbs out when you go to 12/12 with 2700K bulbs. You can grow great bud with flouros, but you gotta take them for what they are: weak in comparison to HIDs. I grow with CFLs, they are cheap, easy to work with, and you can surround the plant with them. The tubes take up so much space that you end up wasting a lot of the light unless they are running right up the side of the plant, hence my recommendation. Or just put your clones under that bad boy. It'll work, just not for everything.

I've been thinking about a grow box design using tubes running vertically along two of the walls, and having the plant (you can really only do this with one or two plants) spin somehow, maybe modding a motor to spin super slow and having it rotate once or twice an hour. And just surrounding the plant with light and keeping it spinning, ensuring even growth and the best use of lights that have to be so focused on a spot.