CFL and HPS?

Hey guys, just started a closet grow so i have a 3 pineapple skunk seedlings pushing the veg. stage. My question to you is up to this point it was going to be entirely CFL, as I have a nice set up with WITH 8 23WATT 2 soft white and the rest are natural daylight. However, i recently got an awesome 1000w HPS with a digital ballast and 3 hydrolux bulbs. I know this light with jack up my power bill significantly. My question to you guys is should I continue with the CFL set up until flowering to save on my bill or will my yield significantly larger if I used the HPS for the rest of the process. Thanks alot!

Well, have you considered buying a 600w light to use with veg in that ballast? or even smaller to save costs during veg but greatly increase lumens and light penetration? the lights only use the power needed, so using a 600w light in a 1000w ballast is ok and using a lower wattage bulb then it can handle might** increase the life of the ballast as well since it isn't working as hard.

I actually do have a smaller wattage one and the ballast can be set to 100% 80% or 60% its pretty cool. So use a 600 on maybe 80%?

nice so the ballast is dimmable thats a cool feature. yeah for veg i would use the hps on a lower setting, Keep the cfls for, lets say side lighting etc, and when flowering comes around crank that ballast all the way up, id even keep the cfls. just make sure you can manage the heat issues that big lights produce. this is just from what ive read. May want to consult with other's as well

We used to veg with CFL's and go HPS for flower all the time, and got incredible yields... in fact- they seem to have slacked-off when we changed to vegging under HPS...

Going to a 1000w means you need venting and cooling too--
did you get a couple good in-line or vortex-style fans as well?
You need one to suck air thru the hood and out of the room... and another to suck cool air into the room from either outdoors (with a filter) or from another room.... or your temps will SOAR!
also-- start the plants in 12/12 with the hoods WAY up away from the tops and work down gradually until they are 10-12 inches away... as long as you can't feel any heat on the back of your hand at plant-top level- it can be that close... but you don't want to bleach them or give them "sun scald"....

We are going to T5's for vegging-- I really thing Floro-spectrum is better for vegging- but thats JMO.

I didnt get any fans :/ but the fact that you have had great results with cfls for flowering that gives me plenty of time to figure out a venting situation.

No hun-- read again...
CFL's for VEGGING then HPS for flowering... we changed to HPS for Vegging AND flowering due to how much space we had to cover... we still use 1000w HPS for flower (wouldn't use anything else--except MAYBE a T5 in a pinch)

Stick with your CFL's for vegging- get a couple fans and hook up your HPS to bloom- they really yield that way!

I meant to type vegging.
talking.typing.smoking. You make mistakes. lol
"I didnt get any fans :/ but the fact that you have had great results with cfls for VEGGINGthat gives me plenty of time to figure out a venting situation."

I also typed "HYDROLUX" in the first post because i was looking at the reflector. So I am going to clarify

Hydrofarm reflector
1000w Hortilux bulb
Phantom digital ballast 1000w
8x23w cfls

If you veg them very long, you'll want to add a few extra CFL's so they don't stretch and get "leggy"... or they'll have issues in flower and have to be tied....

How many more, do you think?

i'll vote cfl's for veg, they really do veg a plant nice
when i see hps/cfl veg setups, they have the cfl's far away, which defeats their strength
if money is an issue and you don't want to burn electric power for the hell of it, use cfl's for veg
for flower, of course, hps is hard to beat