To compare it right and make it even, you need to get those larger CFL's. A couple of them 200 watt envirolites or something.

Why? What does it matter what CFL's or fluoro's are used?

The comparator should be Yield in terms of Oz's (or grams) per square foot, per watt of lighting used and per cost of producing 1 Oz of bud in terms of electricity used.

As you can see the last two make it hard for the HID to be competitive, because once you start factoring in price per oz or per watt or sq foot the lower electricity and wattages of the fluoro's starts to redress the balance.

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Mandala Seeds Kalichakra and Satori Grow
Holefillers 0.6gram per watt 64w Micro Grow

When factoring small grows maybe, but say for instance you are growing 40 plants you are going to need a whole shed load of cfls as opposed to 2 hid systems. I'd bet that in order to get similar results you would have to use more watts of cfl lighting than you would hid.

Say for instance your growing 40 plants and using two 600w hps, how many watts of cfl lighting would it take to achieve equally satisfactory results?

It is an equally false assumption that people who use hid only use it because that is what they think they are supposed to use because someone told them.

I currently veg for 12 hours under a 250w 6400k cfl and then for the other 12 hours of the day they sit underneath a 400w mh in the flowering room. Then when they flower they sit underneath whats currently 2 600w hps. In veg at the moment I have 15 plants. In flower I have 30 plants. After tonight there will probably be 20 clones thrown into the equation.

How many watts of cfl power would i need if i were to do cfl alone.

I do agree with you though that in a small space with a limited number of plants, that you could be equally better off to go with cfl than you would hid if temps were not the issue, but small space growers are pushed away from hid with the heat issues unless they can counteract it.

I think it does make a difference what kind are used. If you want to give CFL a fair shot, cost would be a determining factor. I'm not familiar with cost on CFL but for each light you get you need a decent reflector. I've seen those hardware reflectors, but if I was going for yield I would buy a "real" reflector with a good grow light with proper spectrum. I said envirolite because that is the only one I'm familiar with. There may be others, that I'm unsure of.

I just ran your cfl's over with my big wheel. They were in my way. HPS coming thru.

That was funny.

Yeah and you burnt the plants because you tried to get in a space too small and didnt use enough ventilation

Spin your tires on them.

yeah and they are all dead now, no plants left scorched by the burning tyres of mogies hps.

This thread is about to proper kick off though i feel