Why Use CFL's instead of Flourescent tubes?

I am from when they did not have CFL's... Just wondering what the big push is to use the CFL's instead of 18" / 24" 48" Tubes?
Unless I am wrong and I could be, 2 X 48" tubes seems as though it would give of more light than say 3-4 100Watt CFL Bulbs ? and with them being in a fixture, all light is direct down towards the plants instead of in every direction like the CFL's
I guess I am asking if the reason is some just do not have room to hang a 2' or 4' fixture?
I have always used tubes and did just fine

with the new t5 flours you can change out the bulbs from veg bulbs to bloom bulbs, thats the only advantage i can see using flours, i personally do not like cfl's im a HPS person all the way

soon as i can get up some more change im gonna get me a nice t5 set up for clones though, just a thought lol

Are you familiar with this guys grow? Looks super interesting.

[video=youtube;WsPJvaYsF_M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsPJvaYsF_M[/video]

ninesecz said:

I am from when they did not have CFL's... Just wondering what the big push is to use the CFL's instead of 18" / 24" 48" Tubes?
Unless I am wrong and I could be, 2 X 48" tubes seems as though it would give of more light than say 3-4 100Watt CFL Bulbs ? and with them being in a fixture, all light is direct down towards the plants instead of in every direction like the CFL's
I guess I am asking if the reason is some just do not have room to hang a 2' or 4' fixture?
I have always used tubes and did just fine

Click to expand...

I have CFL's now and they're working fine. The drawback in them that I see is the built in ballast. Once the bulb is gone so is the ballast. I'm going T5's in the future but for now...

amrcngror said:

soon as i can get up some more change im gonna get me a nice t5 set up for clones though, just a thought lol

Click to expand...

They work great for seedlings, clones, vegging. I have'nt hit the flower yet but will post pics as it progresses.

ninesecz said:

I am from when they did not have CFL's... Just wondering what the big push is to use the CFL's instead of 18" / 24" 48" Tubes?
Unless I am wrong and I could be, 2 X 48" tubes seems as though it would give of more light than say 3-4 100Watt CFL Bulbs ? and with them being in a fixture, all light is direct down towards the plants instead of in every direction like the CFL's
I guess I am asking if the reason is some just do not have room to hang a 2' or 4' fixture?
I have always used tubes and did just fine

Click to expand...

Light penetrations seems to be the biggest issue with tubes... t12 and t8 bulbs have less penetration power than t5/hot5, and hot5s seem to be pretty good to floro lights. 4 feet of light is nice but wouldn't you rather have 40 watts in concentration vs. 40 watts spread over 4ft???
The really nice thing about cfls is the ablity to manipulate light position for better light coverage. Not something I did but, If you look around at most of these amazing cfl grows, you'll see cfls all over the place surrounding the plant (top sides and bottom...) creating better light penetration, that I think is your biggest advantage, along with price.
Cfls are getting cheaper all the time. I say it all the time... the dollar tree sells 23watt cfls, 4 bulbs for a dollar... wtf? that's awesome you just got enough light for a small 1 plant personal grow for a buck. The good news, govt. regulations are getting even stricter on cfls... we should see improvment in cfls over the next few years as far as quality goes.

I use both tubes and cfls... I 1/4 turn every day like most do.

Stay high