Metal Halide Q&A

People have read way too far into the whole lighting thing IMO. I have junk T5's and my growth is great. I am going with MH's on my new setup because its cheaper and easier to DIY them than others and the bulbs are easier to shop for.

 

I just got them yesterday and havent installed them yet....I wanted to wait to make sure I am using the right bulbs.

Do you think I will get any growth from them?

 

yes you will still get growth from any bulb, it is just the speed that they grow at...
You said you were growing mostly softies for now right? If so, those bulbs will be perfectly fine, but when you start to get sps you can change bulb brand...

if you can, check out the color of those bulbs first before yo make your final decision

Also you may be interested in hamilton 14K on your ballast... it is still fairly high PAR and they have a very nice blue color on them

 

Thank You....I will run these for a while and then buy the hamiltons as you suggested.
Do you know how long the life of the bulbs are in general or do they all differ a lot?

Do you have to change the 250w more often?

 

All halides last for 9 to 12 months. After that the bulbs really start to degrade.

 

I haev another question - why dont most of the pendants i see for sale include a piece of glass/acrylic to protect the reflector from saltcreep, etc?

i see some pendants have them but most do not for example the LumenBright ones do not appear to have them.

I think if i didnt have any protection there it would be bad wouldnt it? someone mentioned that the outer glass on the mogul based bulbs protect UV so with a HQI DE pendant without that glass whats to protect the UV exposure?

maybe im missing something

 

yes, the glass on a DE bulb is required to filter out the UV... on the SE bulbs, the glass is not required to filter it out. If you are worried about salt creep, you can keep the fixtures higher up. I do not use glass, and a lot of the people I know do not use glass... but most online retailers sell glass for the lumenbrites separately (around 13 dollars).
If you have SE bulbs, the UV is not going to be harmful... its cut down from the glass around the bulb

 

so you're saying the DE bulb is UV filtered already because of the glass surrounding it?i guess im worried about UV and im worried that ill have bad PAR with dirty reflectors every week from residue buildup from evaporation.

 

No, the SE is the one with an outer glass envelope. Just look at the bulb, you can see it.

 

exactly, which is why i was questioning the use of tempered glass on the DE bulbs, but read that people dont use them in most cases.