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New cp lighting

wow, I hope you have lots of space between the plants and that bulb, 400 watt metal halides are HOT!
 
it has optional fans im going to get for it and its supose to be a heat reduction unit but im shure it can still fry an egg thru its shell hehe
 
Deffinately need to use caution. From the heat produced by the bulb as previously noted but also by the heat the light carries with it as infrared radiation. The light itself is capable of burning leaf tissue that is too close or not adapted to it.

Tony
 
Good point, any ideals on how to combat that if it becomes a problem? perhaps increase the distance or cool the growing area temps even more? i run near 80f with my current setup there self balasted 65k compact florecent medium fixture bulbs i dont use a fan as the plants seem to tolerate that but 400 watts your right that would be a whole dif story
 
there are two options I know of, use shade cloth or vinyl screen between the plants that are sensetive and the bulb, or increase the distance between the bulb and the plants. I think eventually you can harden your plants off to deal with the increased intensity, but they will never like being cluse to a bulb that runs several hundred degrees.
 
you're going to need to acclimate your plants to that light. maybe only run it for a few hours each day (while its off use the PC) and gradully increase the amount of time the MH is on over the span of a few weeks to a month or so. Thats how I did it when I went to MH. After that when you get new plants I use shade cloth over an eggcrat shelf and place the plant under it.

also you should never use the MH inside the growing area. It should be in its own enclousure with sheilding and everything. on my MH I use six cooling fans that I built into the canopey. That ballast looks like its a magnetic one so its going to get really hot. The ballast almost more so then the bulb. So you're going to want to get it as far away as you can. Later when you're more into the MH's (trust me the lighting gets to be as addicting as the plants) you can upgrade to an electronic ballast. Electronic ballasts produce much less heat they don't waste as much energy and you have more blub options. when I had a magnetic ballast I could not touch it when it was on. My electronic ones I can pick up and touch without burning myself.
 
thanks guy's im using 40% shade mesh. hope that is enough for now
 
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