Bummmppppp.... Theres like 30 cfl-hid arguements going on in peoples grow journals right now, bring it to the battleground. I'm not trying to hate, just trying to educate.
My 1000w hps is glorious, it provides fat tight nuggets consistantly, temperature is not a problem thanks to decent ventilation. I currently have about 30 plants flowering as we speak, to do that with cfls you'd need like 100 bulbs and you still wouldnt get the high intensity penetration of an hid.
Now its my understanding that lumens dont practically add, that is to say, if you have 10 5000 lumen bulbs, they're still only putting out 5000 lumens. but lets pretend for a second they do add. My hortilux bulb puts out 145000 lumens, to match that in cfls you would need....
56 42 watt cfls
100 23 watt cfls
or a whopping 1758 13w bulbs.
Good lord, thats alot of bulbs. not to mention sockets\cord\power\heat?.
Now i'm not claiming cfls are useless, they're just fine for putting over a patch of clones or even vegging in a pinch, but i know theres still people out there who argue their usefullness in flowering, its just not the right tool for the job.
Please show me something to prove me wrong.