Quote Originally Posted by Markass
Orangeman, my two previous grows before this one have been done with CFL's...I've had a few other problems but I would say that if there's any way that you could get around $100 or so...(what I paid for my 250HPS) it would make you much more happy in the end. CFL's I think are wonderful for veg, but once it comes to flowering they do okay, but it takes tons of them and a lot of know-how to get nice bud production with them. I've just powered on my HPS yesterday, and from what I can tell my plants are digging the light and I think it's going to do wonders when I start to flower them.

eBay: 250 HPS Econo Grow Light w/ Remote Ballast (item 170086835950 end time Mar-11-07 15:39:59 PDT)

This is the light that I bought. I got one for myself and it works just fine. For a budget light, this is great. I didn't have great amounts of cash, but I did know that if I wanted to get some nice buds I was going to have to fork over a bit more. No chance in hell I was going to pay more than $200 for a grow light...so a friend of mine recommended these lights...$105.:thumbsup:
Wow. Not bad. Very good deal there!

The only thing bad about HPS is that you really can't use them throughout the whole cycle of the plants life. Meaning they're only benefitial to flowering.

So you end up having to add the HPS in when you switch to 12/12.

Personally I prefer not doing this.

On the other hand, if you can afford the electric bill, you can simply just run the CFLs with the HPS! But to avoid unneeded costs simply buy 6 of the cool CFLs (6500K) and forget about the warm CFLs. Which would be just flat out phenominal in regaurds to best bang for your buck!

You could run that setup through the whole plants life without having to switch out any lights or anything. Only issue there is you're looking at 390watts + the 250watts = 640watts and a whole lot of heat.

Decisions decisions..lol