CF lights

are these any good? thinking of getting new light but dont know if to go with cf.
will they work as well as HPS/MH?
will they use less power and cooler room so i will need a heater?
which cf do you guys like?

Well I am on my first grow so I am not speaking with a whole lot of experience, but I have a diy dfl light with a diy reflector shade. It is 36' long X 1.5" wide. It holds twelve 23w (100w equivilant) 6500k cfls and so far its working great. I plan on upgrading to an hps system eventually but unfortunately I'm on a budget for now. I might just go ahead and finish out this grow with cfls just for shits and grins to see how it turns out over all.

But to answer your questions, hps/mh is definately the way go. The drawbacks are higher temps, more expensive, and you pretty much have to invest in a ventilation system from the start.

Cfls are relatively inexpensive. I think my 12 light lamp cost me a total of 60 bucks and no ballist is required. The temps remain pretty low. Mine is a closet grow for now and my temps rarely exceed 90 but i fix that by cracking the door and pointing a small fan in there to drop it back to 80-85. If I had to stay with cfls I would deffinately get some higher wattage lamps more like the 200w equivilant bulbs but the prices on those are high enough that I might as well go with a hps/mh light instead. but so far my plants are doing very well with the cfls so I cant complain. The drawbacks to cfls though are less lumens per bulb and it takes a good deal of wiring to get them set up right.

If you got the cash to spend and the space to make it work I would definately suggest going hps/mh.

Hope that helps and good luck with it!

currently I have a really really old 400w hps system. I just wanted to see if cf would work for me. Its for a closet that stays cool. the hps keeps it at the right temperature with just a small fan. But i figured if plants do just as well on cfl i could just get more lights and have a brighter closet.

yeah you can definately make due with CFLs for a closet grow. I have 20+ plants growing under my 12 cfl light and they are growing at least an inch a day and they are all very healthy.