Well I'm still trying to figure out how to say it.

cfls....13,000 lumens is the best youll ever get from them. At one inch, at six inches, you will NEVER get more than 13,000 lumens...you see what I mean? Your cfls are also pretty useless at anything beyond...say....a foot. So they are only good for one foot of light anyway.

So an MH bulb ALREADY starts with TWICE the lumens (25,000) and its already DOUBLE the distance...(1 foot)...or perhaps even MORE than double the distance than a cfl. Still starting with 25,000 lumens. It just can't lose that race.

Drop it back to two feet from target.....5000 lumens and so on.....
Weedhound Reviewed by Weedhound on . Loss of light on HID units due to distance caused by heat... Since HPS and MH fixtures generate so much heat, is it safe to say that because you can place fluorescents and CFLs more than twice as close to your plants, that you are essentially needing half the lumens when comparing to an HID? If in reality all one would be getting with an HID is say, half, does that mean that a fluoro setup, given the right amount of lumens say 13,000 can be equal to a 250 watt HID if placed twice as close? Especially since fluorescents have a more favorable color Rating: 5