lights

gills here again im workin in a old store house that is 2 be tore down and i saw that the lightin in the place is all 400w lights (white boxes with built in boosters) will these work for growin as there must be at lest 200 of the dam things which have 2 be riped out n dumped.thats my job 2 day an im wonderin if i should keep some

On the other hand, MH and HPS lights are also used in industrial, non-growing settings.
If each light has some sort of ballast or transformer built in, this may indicate that they are some kind of specialist lamp. It's only HIDs and fluoros that need ballasts and straters, AFAIK.

Can you possibly post a picture of one of the bulbs? Boxes that run the lights may be fairly nondescript, but the bulbs should give some clue as to just what sort of lights these are.

The HSI-THX light seems to be a metal halide - perfect for vegetative stage in marijuana growing. This is the one with the sphere. Should give off blue/white light.

yes looks like u cud save yourself a few qwid there m8 well done see if theres any big pots about while u there.

In that space you could grow with a single 400W hps if you dont let the plants get too large. Ideal finishing height for plants is usually 2 - 3 feet not including the pot. Any higher and the lamp wont be able to penetrate the foilage to the bottom of the plant. Higher plants require higher wattage bulbs to flower optimally.

If you have enough electricity to spare you could just as well grow with 3 or 4 lamps in that space, provided you can get the place to stay within reasonable temperatures. 3 or 4 x 400W lamps in such a space would get you some serious "sea of green" yield. 2 x 600W lamps would give you more lumen/watt than 3 x 400W as higher wattage bulbs are more efficient, even tho the consumed electrical power is equal.

There's a lot of potting mixes out there. I'm using Plagron growmix for the seedling and veg phase, and Plagron Royalty mix with perlite for flowering. Excellent results so far.