Need Help with particular light

Ive had this light for a while, its just a bulb, I'm hoping to grow about 5 plants, I am 100% ignorant to most things involving electricity and lighting. If anyone can help me as to how well this light will work, how to actually use it, basically anything. I have the exact page for the light it is here... http://www.eyelighting.com/tb/HPS/ig...2-78-59718.pdf

From what Im gathering it is more than sufficient, but what do I need for a ballast or something? how much money am I looking at?
Any help would be very greatly appreciated.

yep, that is a good bulb... that is a 1000 watt High Pressure Sodium bulb (which you'll find on these boards gets shortened to HPS).

You will need a 1000watt HPS ballast to operate it, your looking at about a minimum of $160 USD for a 1000watt HPS ballast. thats the cheapest I found on htgsupply.com, I don;t know if its a "good" one though, they go up to about $250.

however, with that out of the way, let me also say this...

1000 watts is overkill for 5 plants. To put it in terms that should make sense...


Light is measured in something called "Lumens", that bulb you linked produces a peak of 140,000 lumens.

They say to grow good MJ, you want to aim for 5000+ lumens per square foot of growing space (you can grow all the way down to 2500-3000 lumens, but its not ideal).

So... your 140,000 lumen bulb is good to cover a grow space of 28 square feet, which is over 5' x 5'

You might be best to just not even use that bulb and get a 400/600watt setup (I suggest reading all the stickies in the Indoor Lighting forum before making a decision).

I don;t know what your grow space dimensions are, but you cant put that 1000watt bulb in a small space... its going to produce ALOT of heat, a 400/600 will too, but already like only half as much as the 1000

Awesome thanks for the quick response. As for space, I have quite a bit, but was really only wanting to devote a small corner of my basement, for personal use. Its a big wide open unfinished basement, so Im going to have to figure out the best possible way to do this.

Looks good. Good luck w/ that grow. 1000watt is enough for sure