CFL vs FLORO vs HPS

ok outa boredom and waaay to much free time i did alil playing with lights and this is what i found out.
first off all the plants are clones cut from the same mother at the same time. they are white widow. they are all in bubblers that are exactly the same (ph,PPM,water temp, water level) everything other than the lights are exactly the same. thats a point im trying to make really clear here, cuz thats the reason for this whole post.
im growing 3 different crops in 3 different rooms. all the rooms are 4'x4'x8'(LxWxH). they are all made from panda plastic and the temps are controlled to 78 +/- 2. each room has 1, 20 gallon bubbler with 3 plants in each tub. the plants are in 5" netpots with 2" rockwool and hydroton. im useing GH 3 part with super thrive and cal/mag for nutes. i used olivia's rooting gel to start the clones, and started them all in the bubblers they are in now on 18/6 lighting.
ok now for the good stuff, in room 1 i used a 1000watt hps hortilux eye with a cool tube and bat wing reflector. room 2 had 6, 13watt CFLs with drop light reflectors. and room 3 had 2, 4' floros in a plain ole shop reflector.
ROOM1 \1x1000watt HPS/
i started the light off about 3' above the plants and lowered it every few days until it was/is at 1' above them. the plants started slow at first. much slower than the other 2 rooms. but by the time the started to grow thier 2nd set of new leaves they started to grow pretty fast. but not up to par with the CFLs.
ROOM2 \6x13watt CFLs,,, 78total watts/
i started the plants in this room with the light about 1' above them and lowered it to within 2" by the end of week 1. the plants showed improvement within 2 days and by 4 days had thier 2nd set of new leaves. the plants in this room always looked better than thier sisters in the other 2 rooms. so much so that i was shocked. even better than the HPS.
ROOM3 \2x40watt 4' long tube floros,,,, 80 total watts/
in room 3 i started the lights off about 1' over the plants, and moved it down to within 2" by the end of week 1. these plants grew noticilbly slower and skinnier than the other 2 rooms. by the end of week 1 they had hardly changed at all. by far the worst of all 3 rooms.
they are now at week 5 almost and will go into flowering in a day or two. i let them get on the big side, but i ment to so that see just how much could be grown with each kind of light. the CFLs still look far better than the other 2 rooms with the HPS not far behind. the plants in room 2 (CFL room) are bushier and have almost 2x as many nodes as room 1 (HPS room). and the plants in room 3(4' floros) are just plain sad looking.
im sure things will swing to favor the HPS room when i go to 12/12, but enough to offset the cost is what this is all about.ill keep this updated as much as i can and let yall know what i yeild off each light, and toss up some pics now and again. i have to take the plants out of thier rooms to take pics so there wont be alot, but enough that youll see the what each light is doing. hope this helps to clear the air on what is worth growing with and what works best at what stage of growth,,,, for me.
and dont go bustin my e-nadds about spelling or stuff like that,,, im buzzin like a crop duster most the time im on this site,,,,, or awake.

plants from room 1(hps) @ 5 weeks

room 2 CFLs @ 5 weeks

room3 4' floros @ 5 weeks

i put the gel in the pics to give some scale.

Wow. Very interesting post. I read where CFLs are fine during veg but the real difference and advantage of the HPS is during the flowering phase. Thanks for the info and keep us posted.

it blew me away that the lil CFLs are doing so much better than the HPS so far. yeah im sure the the HPS will soon show up those CFLs in the flowering stage, but i never wouldve guessed that 78watts would out veg 1000watts. as for the long tube floros,,,, i vegged with them last year on my first indoor crop, and i will never use them again unless i need a huge paper wieght lol

Would have been interesting if you had a 1000 watt MH to add into the experiment.

Experiments...this is how we learn. Very cool. Thanks!

wow quite a difference from regular fluoros to CFL's.....
I'm using CFL's and just started flowering, but I must say they are very dense plants

Very nicely done. I am very surprised that the cfls have stayed ahead for all 5 weeks. Keep us posted as to what happens in flower.

ok i started to flower them all today. i took pics of just the best plants under each light. the HPS and CFLs are to big to take the whole tub out without risking brakeing the plants. i wont be adding CO2 or any kind of bud boosters to this crop. they will just have GH 3 part mixed 0/2/3 (G/M/B) and cal/mag plus.
the HPS is starting to really show more growth than the CFLs now that the plants are getting big. the CFLs just dont reach far enough down into the plant and the bottom leaves are starting to drop off alil. but thats expected from those lights on a 2' tall plant i guess. and the long tube floros are still sad looking. you can really see the difference in the size of the roots now. the HPS plants roots are huge, but a close 2nd with the CFLs and the long tube floros are small and thin. im letting all the plants just grow without any pruning at all.

pic1 is of the long tube floro plant
pic2 is of the HPS plant
pic3 is of the CFL plant

just some root pics.

pic1 is of long tube floros roots
pic2 is of CFL roots
pic3 is of HPS roots

Great thread. I'm glad you decided on this. I have been debating whether to get a 150w HPS and I may yet but I think I will go CFL all the way on this grow. Space is my biggest concern. We have kids and it's getting harder and harder to hide our grow. I don't think I can hide the HPS.

Bigbad, maybe if you topped and/or FIMed the plants the CFLs would reach down further into the plant. I know this is an experiment but I will probably do that to mine, along with having my light all over the plants. Maybe that will stimulate bigger buds. I will say my stems are pretty thick now, ranging from about 1/2" to 1.5".

Keep us posted!

Fu*king amazing.... thanks m8 for doing such a good experiment lol, i think im goin to have my grow on cfls all through the grow. HPS uses way to much electricity for me lol and im only growing them for personal use lol ... thx again

What do you think would be the difference if you used a 1000MH for the veg stage?
peace

its funny you brought that up. im takeing some of the lights and moveing them to the sides. 2 lights on top of the plants and 2 on each side to see if that will slow the upward growth alil and help them bush out some.
when i started this i was going to leave all the lights on top of the plants to make it completely fair, cuz i cant have the HPS or long tubes spread out. but the more i think about it it seems completely fair to move the CFLs to get the best growth. the ablity to have the CFL lights in different places around the plant is one of the good parts about growing with them.
if the CFLs do 1/2 aswell in flowering as the did in veg i may try a CFL grow with 1000watts worth of CFLs to compair to the HPS from this grow. but thats something to think about when i get this grow done. i just dont have the space to do it now.
on a side note,,, i was so impressed with the CFLs i went to wally world over the weekend and bought a 6 light fixture that is made to go over a bathroom mirror (12.00), 6 of the Y type fittings(10.00) so u can 2 bulbs in place of 1, and 2 boxes 6 lights in each box of 13watt CFL lights(20.00). 42.00 for all and that gives 156watts on a 4' light fixture. i was going to use that for clones but i may just buy a few more setups exactly like that and do a whole grow. if i bought 5 more setup like that i would have 936 total watts and just like now they would be completely movible and nowhere near the heat of the HPS. if i do thy that it will be in a 4'x4' room like i have the HPS in now.

glad yall dig the thread.
hearmenow, i was thinking about toping when i first started this. to get the yield up, but when i i saw how poorly the long tube floros plants were doing i decided not to. im trying to keep everything as close to the same as i can and i could top the big plants atleast 2 or 3 times before the long tube floros plants would get over the shock of the first topping. so im going to a single cola on all the plants.
wkarma i have no idea. ive never used a MH light before. i have a digi 1000watt ballast so i may try that after this crops is done to see what happens.

This is one of the most interesting thread I have read. I am growing in a 9x12x8 with 1 400 wt conversion hps 1 1000 wt hps and 40 23 wt cfls and was thinking of replacing the cfls with another 1000 wt hps but now I am rethinking that. Thanks please keep us posted