jerry-joe
Active Member
I just started a grow a little over a week ago. I did a fair amount of research, most of it on lights. I was originally leaning towards a spider farmer sf4000 which goes for around $550. I liked the idea of lower operating cost (electricity), less heat to have to exhaust, and not having to replace bulbs, like a typical HID setup. However, I ended up purchasing a 1000W HID (MH/HPS), primarily to save money. $190 vs $550 was a big difference for me considering the whole order (tent, soil, nutrients, etc) was over $1000. In all the years I have been growing, I've only used MH/HPS for lights, so there is a level of comfortability. The only way to test the attributes of the two light styles would be to have the same genetics in the same medium with identical nutrient schedules under each light (for me it'd be my 1000W HID vs a spider farmer sf4000) and see what the yield per watt difference is. But that's a lot of extra money and since I can only grow six plants here in Maine, it would be a ton of wasted light with only 3 plants under each.