2 400w hps

Im a newbie when it comes to indoor. I have done my research but i have a couple questions that are simple for the prof.
I just went out and bought 2 400w hps lights and i was wondering can i use it thru out the whole entire grow? say during vegation have it 12/12 and during flowering have it 10/12 ( I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE VEG.-FLOW. HOURS SHOULD BE) To make it a simple quesiton can i keep the smae light without changint he bulb and just change the light schedule?

Buy yourself 2 x Phillips Ceramic Metal Halide 400w horizontal lamps. They cost $53 each, or even $48 if you check the CMH thread. They are much better for veg. and they tolerate being run 24/7 which is ideal for veg. When you want your plants to bud, switch to 12/12, and after another week, substitute the HPS lamps for the CMH. HPS puts out more plant lumens. CMH is like mothers milk for the calf (seedling), and HPS is like the grain feedlot (flowering stage, putting on weight).

look into the 600 watter instead it has the best lumens per watt ratio. If you have an autoflowering strain then you don't need to worry about light schedule but you do need different light cycles for flowering/vegging for normal ganja plants.

to answer the question yes u can use your hps lights but on a 18 hours of light a day schedule and then switch to 12/12 after u have finished ur cycle of vegging.

The cheapest thing to do is to get 4 foot fluorescents warm and cool white bulbs and use that for veg state it saves on your electric bill to

thanks alot "hiesman"

We just finished a huge discussion about this on this forum.
When vegging, you want your plants to be stocky and bushy, and the very high blue content of either a metal halide or a CMH promotes this, the "skeleton" of the plant. A metal halide lamp running on an HPS ballast though, doesn't have a very good performance, and will not perform anywhere near as well as a CMH. Don't veg with 18/6, you are wasting 6 hours when your plants could be growing bigger, which is 25% of your growing cycle, the plants will be 25% smaller, so this is NOT the thing to do. The experienced growers veg 24 hours a day, and if you have 2 HPS ballasts, then you should be vegging with 2 CMH lamps (if you have the money, that is), or veg with ONE CMH lamp if you don't (the plants are much smaller during veg, and you might be able to fit them all into the smaller area. HPS will give somewhat lanky stretched out vegging, and the plant REQUIRES blue light to synthesize chlorophyll, people that have use it and photograph it recommend it, and I do too. Blue light stimulates the plant to be short and stocky, which is what you want for indoor growing: a dense fat bush with huge sticky buds.