ballast cooling

just started my first grow and one thing that had me nervous was once the ballast gets going for long periods of times it was getting really hot. i started to get worried about it being a fire hazard until i did a little trick and moved it directly under my 450 cfm exhaust fan and now its really doing a great job keeping it cool. just thought id share this for any other newbies with a similar problem.

i attached a pic of one of my seedlings (out of 4).. how does it look so far?

Start plants in cups under 150+ watt cfl's or similar. Then when they get say 6+ nodes move them under the big lights. Using HID and 5 gallon buckets for sprouts is counter productive. When they are in cups you can crowd them together under a small light to use lighting efficiently and get much more on them.

i wanted to start in cups under cfls but i ran a little over budget (originally my 500 budget turned to 750) so i scrapped that plan and decided to try my luck but definitely doin that for the 2nd grow. all the plants seem to be getting a good amount of light for now though. im running a 600w cool tube with a 32x36" reflector

i've always had great results starting plants under dirt cheap shop lights you can get for as little as $10 on a good day, minus bulbs which are the expensive part these days

^ good info im definitely looking into that