I have a pair of new cotton work gloves I keep right by my shelf of bulbs and they only touch glass. The bulbs can be cleaned with Windex if that's all you got. I just found a nice EYE Hortilux Multi-Metal bulb in a box of spare bulbs and it was really dirty so I washed it with the dish sponge and a little Dawn first then just breated on it and polished it up with a clean wash cloth. Works great.
I have a 400W Hortilux conversion bulb that gives MH light using an HPS ballast and it's 17 years old at least and has been used in every grow since new so is way past it's prime but still grows plants better than the cheapo 400W Plantmax MH bulb I got and it's near new.
The 400W HPS ballast I just put a new capacitor in crapped out. I was running a 2nd Hort like the old one and it didn't fire up this morning. I put in that Multi-Metal bulb and it started OK so thought the hort was shot but it went out about 15 min later. Stuck a SolarMax max Super HPS in there after letting the ballast cool for an hour and it wouldn't go either. Figgered it had to be the ignitor so put the 400W PlantMax MH in there and it's working fine so it is the ignitor. Swapping out the two 400s for the 1000 today or tomorrow and flipping to 12/12 so good enough. I'll pick up an ignitor the next time I go to the city or order one from the hydro shop in Edmonton where I just got 3 new capacitors from. MH and HPS magnetics use the same coil and capacitors but the HPS needs an ignitor to start the bulb unless you have a conversion bulb.
If you're fussy and just got to have the max of everything then sure you can toss out your bulbs every 3 grows but if 10% less light isn't a big deal then just keep using it.
I have 2 of these ancient 400W HPS ballasts and a similar 400 MH and they've never given me a moment of grief. A dead 400 that my buddy gave me is much newer and in a nice aluminum louvered case with a handle on top and that's the one causing trouble now. Go figure. lol
The best bulb of this lot is the huge Hortilux conversion bulb in the center. For flowering off of 1000W MH but only uses 940W. Got it for $170 about 3 years ago and only use it for the stretch then swap in a Light EnerG Super HPS for the rest. Saw that 940W for $299 online here in Canada so I guess this one is my last one of those. Want to get a 10,000K finishing bulb one of these days. Goofy looking Gavita HPS bulb with the built in reflector top center. Made in Russia!
The So-So bulbs that are for backup. The one marked used was new when I got it and has been used twice for the last 5 or 6 weeks of flowering.
Got the last 40 plants repotted today and now to try to arrange them all to get them under the 1000W with the Light Rail® so everybody gets good coverage. Everything from a 4' AK47 reveg to an 18" Ayahuasca Purple. lol
