CFL is a very impractical light, regardless of what the CFL lovers try to sell.
CFL works fine if you want to grow SMALL plants, and/or keep things cheap and stealthy. Just don't expect too much yield.
CFL is also perfectly fine for seedlings and vegging smaller plants.
thanx for the info, i think i will hold on to the haze seeds and just germinate the other 3, not veg em too long. i will probly go with the 4x6x6 grow tent in a couple weeks. The main reason i didnt want to go with hps is the initial expense but mostly the heat issues, i do not want to have to run a bunch of ventilation tubing and exhaust fans. i may get a 150 watt hps to supplement my cfl. My next order will be a few autoflowering plants and some kush or diesel more than likely.
Well, total heat output is almost directly proportionate to energy used, since all these lighting systems convert most of the input electricity into waste heat. Consquently, 150W of CFL puts out nearly as much total heat as a 150W HPS. The HPS will put out a tad more heat because of the extra draw of its ballast (ie a 150W nominally rated HPS actually draws closer to 180W), but the main difference is just that the HPS puts out the heat from one spot, where as the CFL spreads it out more.
Still, not only do HPS bulbs put more light per watt than CFL, the light they put out has a better spectrum for growing. You'll probably pull close to 50% more yield on a per watt basis with a decent HPS setup compared to ordinary CFLs.
As a secondary consideration, the larger the HPS the more efficient they run. 150 HPS setups aren't all that efficient, and typically they use noisy magnetic ballasts. For not that much more money you could get a 250W HPS, and you'll probably double the yield over an 150W with not that much more cost.
Just to be clear your using T5 right? Any other light is not rated for plants and is a waste of time and money.
I disagree. The tubes of CFLs are fundamentally the same as those of T5, and they're available in the exact same light spectra if you care to look (ie 2700K, 5000k, etc).
They're not optimal, and T5s are better for sure, but you can grow perfectly fine plants with ordinary CFLs, so long as you know what you're doing and use them correctly.
The most important difference is that T5 lighting is easily directed straight down with simple reflectors. CFLs are meant to throw their light in a spherical pattern, and are quite a bit harder to direct the light in a useful way. Ideally, you'd want to use parabolic reflectors for them, though most people don't. But they'll still work, and if you're looking at this from an initial setup/hardware perspective, CFLs are probably the cheapest way to get started.
