CFL question.

Havn't been around for a while but i've got the growing bug back now lol, and the time has come for me to purchase a new light. I was running with a dual watt 125watt cfl, but that's about had it's day now!

I don't have much height space and have only grown autoflowering plants in the past manging to get 40grams off one of my grows with the tiny 125watt cfl. So my question is now i'm thinking about getting another cfl, but not sure what wattage to get. Going to get just a red spectrum one this time i think not a dual spectrum one.

Should i go for the 150watt or 250watt??? Just concerned that if i get the 250 watt one then i wont be able to keep the temps down enough in my 1.5 meters of height space. Was looking for some opinions please? I only plan on growing one plant at a time under the light if that's relevent.

Also if anyone could give me any ideas how much it will cost to run the lamps for 18 hours a day? Bit concerned that the higher watt bulb will take too much electric and cost me to much money!

Thanks in advance.

whats up Im new to the whole cfl thing i just use metal halide and hps but I want to make a light out of cfl's to clone with.
what are the cheapest cfl's to use for this? cause some fit in a reaguylar mogul and some are larger like the size in my metal halide lights. can i use the standard cfl to grow with our do I need a special grow bulb cfl

I am in a small grow room to and i have a couple of plants. I have smaller cfl's this time and I think that multiple lights are better than 1. I think I would try 4 43 watt cfl you should get about 2600 lumens per bulb and that would be over 10,000 and when it gets bigger you can add some more.

250 watt 15500 lumens
150 watt 12400
105 watt 6200
43 watt 2600

the 43 watt bulbs dont put off much heat but at the 105 watt i noticed my room would get about 5 degrees hotter. With the small bulbs use the reflector and the help alot. good luck

for cfls get 23 and 42w, and mix it so you have 70% blue in veg and 70% red in flower. Also excellent are T5 HO fixtures. Not cheap butcooler still than cfls and much more intensity and lumens per watt.

I have never used more than one light. Well apart from when i frist started out then i had 4 40watt cfl's but found that i couldn't keep the temps low enough so changed to one big bulb which seems to give off less heat and all was good. Was sceptical about cfl's myself at first but if you setup right think you can achive quiet a nice little grow with them. I was thinking myself of getting one big bulb not a few smaller wattage ones. Since i already have my grow set up for the one big bulb have all the fittings just need a new bulb. Would be a lot of hassle to have a few littles in and change my whole setup at this point.

Here's a link to the kind of bulb i was thinking of buying.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Red-Spectrum-250-watt-8U-2700K-E40-CFL-Grow-Light-Bulb_W0QQitemZ220496436472QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_HomeGarden_Garden_PlantsSeedsBulbs_JN?hash=item33569c9cf8

Just not sure what wattage to go for