Ceramic Metal Halides for First Grow?

I'm really looking at these hard. I haven't heard too many people talking about them and the king of the first grow looks to be CFLs but I am really thinking about these Ceramic Metal Halides.

I like how people say you can use it from germination, vegetation, straight into blooming because it has a more complete color spectrum for growing and more closely approximates sunlight than the more specialized HPS and MH lights. I've read a few people saying that their CMHs ran 5 to 6 degrees cooler than comparable HPS and MH lights and to a guy looking at his first grow in a smaller cab or grow tent that really caught my attention. The heat from the 400 and 600 HPS/MH set up has me concerned. I think a CMH with ballast and inline air would't be much more expensive than CFLs.

If you go blue light/red light for the CFLs instead of dual spectrum you've to buy twice the bulbs. I'd prefer to just run one light, one bulb than a bunch of CFLs I think. A lot easier to wire and work with for the first grow. I'd just put the light on the ceiling, basically and adjust the plant to the CMH bulb rather than the bulb to the plant. It'd be nice not having to fiddle with a bunch of CFLs trying to keep them really close to the plants.

Has anybody used these before here? Would they be good for an absolute stone cold beginner or would you say go with the CFLs?

As long as you have the means to keep temps in check then yes absolutely go with CMH or CDM (ceramic metal halide or ceramic discharge metal halide), their hands down the best HID bulbs for growing, CMH/CDM burn a little cooler than MH or HPS so that helps and yes you can use them for both veg and flower. Philips makes the best CMH/CDM bulbs, the Philips MasterColor Retro Whites have the best spectrum but the highest they come in is 400W, here's the cheapest place Ive found them: (-->CLICK HERE<--) If you need one bigger than 400W, Philips has a new line of CDM lamps from 145W to 860W, check em out: (-->CLICK HERE<--) The Philips CMH/CDM lamps run on magnetic ballasts only, digital/electronic ballasts will destroy them. There is a new brand of CDM lamps that run on both mag and digital, check em out: (-->CLICK HERE<--)

Oh snap, you can get digital ballasts and 400+ watters for these bad boys? Had no idea about those ceramic discharge metal halides. Thanks a lot for the info.

That link for the Phillips 400 horizontal with the ballast for 114+ shipping looks nice, too.

This post is a bit old, but even some of the Philips CMH's will run on electronic ballasts... http://www.usa.lighting.philips.com/pwc_li/us_en/connect/tools_literature/downloads/p-5432.pdf

Any of those will. Look at the ANSI code, Google it and lots of electronic ballasts show up. You can do a 150W electronic ballast for around $100 new and the bulb for around $20.