I'm presently using a pair of 105w CFLs to illuminate a pair of babies who are going into their third week of vegging. I've ordered a 400w HPS and Cooltube and was planning to trick the cabinet out for that bad boy in time for blooming.

I was going to do a straight CFL grow, but the cost of getting high wattage 3000k+/- CFL growlights (or hassle of putting together a bunch of low wattage ones) was comparable to or greater than the cost and trouble of setting up an HID system.

Given my current grow cabinet (a 4' x 2' x 6' cab with one 2' x 2' x 6 and two 2' x 2' x 3' sections), I'm not sure there would be any advantage to vegging under HID. I don't need my plants to get huge while vegging -- quite the opposite, in fact! With CFLs placed close I'm getting nice bushy little plants which I am going to start LSTing soon: I'm hoping when I kick the HPS into play they give me some nice tight buds.

Has anyone here used a similar setup? This is my maiden growing voyage: I already see a few modifications I want to make for round 2 but I'd like to hear what the pros think.