The right lights?

All lights stay cool if you have proper ventilation, and 1000 watt HPS bulbs give optimal growth.

 

You are asking two different questions.

"What lights are the best for indoor-cultivation in small areas" -- that's easy, you want to know what is best, and the answer is HID (HPS and MH).

"I want lights that are going to optimize the growth of my plants and stay fairly cool at the same time" -- now you want a trade-off, and you can't have the best lights and also cool lights.

As Lay Low said, it is your job to manage the heat, much better than selecting an inferior light because of its running temps. Air-cooled HID lighting gives you that best of both worlds.

What size space are you planning?

 

LEDs and CFL´s are adequate for what you seem to convey. You are growing indoors, thats a given. But you also intend to do so in small areas. Closet growing i think is way big to even consider it. Grow boxes is more the thing you are tending.

Since a growbox is small in its nature and HID lights get hot, thats their nature, i would not adivce to go using 1000 watt lamp in a small area, even if able to keep cool with the use of aditional fans that will cost adittional space.

So you are pretty much stuck with CFL´s and LEDS, IMHO. Good LED grow lights seem to be expensive at the time. Theres a thread in this forum about some sick ass beer can grow using leds. It claims a 1 to 2 gram harvest. Its freaking awesome. CFL´s with built in custom made or bought reflectors go farther than the general belief suposes.

If i had tons of money time weed ill go with the smallest LED grow light and the smallest CFL and shoot for a bathroom thrashcan sized stealth grow just to see what happens.

 

I have a small areqa 3 x 5 ft which i am growing two ww's....using a 400 w mh and flo...seeing the growth rate makes me a believer that one light per plant is best for full coverage...i measure the heat/humidity at the base of the plant...i try to keep it at 71 deg...now how high the light is over the plant has the bigest effect on the temp....some say 6-12 in ok and find it no prob with the 400o w...if you had a 1000w it would of course raise the temp but you would be able to keep it farther away from the plant to get the same intensity...inorder to keep the temp between 71-78 deg i pumped ac into the area....and above next to ceiling i have an exhaust fan (heat rises)...

 

you dont need two 400watters for just two plants... you can grow 6 with 1 400watt...

 

I'd find some LED lights that meet the Wattage you want. Better than HPS in some ways.

 

...
i can honestly say that in my year's of growing, nothing beats the Raw Beastly power of a High Wattage HID Light...

 

I vote 400 w MH/HPS switchable. They do not generate too much heat and it is easy to deal with

AND the light it gives off, it is pretty intense. Babies grow like crazy.
you can get a 2 bulb switchable for about $180 on ebay. ready to hang and grow.

 

You dont need 400w for 2 plants.

If you wanna go small scale with 2 plants and still use HID use a 250 plain and simple. I wouldnt use 400w until you get up to 4or6 plants. If you want to go LED's then use a 90w UFO from somewhere like HTGSupply. Both of those lights will pull you atleast 1oz per plant. Seen grows on here with the 90w UFO that pull 2-3oz per plant. I am still trying to do that with my 250 HPS without any luck. I will soon be trying the 90w UFO and I hope it replaces my 250 HPS with the same or better yields.

Best thing to do is block out the opinions people have on lights and either talk to people who are growing using the lights and ask questions or look up proven results on the web. Worst thing you can do is listen to people who have never used LED's when thinking about buying them. Its hard for people to accept change. LED's are the wave of the future no matter if people like it or not.

 

i already said this bro, haha but thanks for the backup!