First time grower and I need help.

I'm a first time grower and I have a couple questions about my set up. I have a 400w Mh for vegging and a 600w HPS for flowering. Can I put my seeds in potting soil and germinate my seeds under the 400w mh? or is that too much light on them before they sprout?

You can use it...think man, plants are grown outdoors under the sun from sprout to finish....you'll be just fine using it.

Ok cool, another quick question. Can I go ahead and plant the seed in the pot that it will spend its whole life in? Also how close should my light be to the plants?

i usually start my seeds in a small Styrofoam cup. As it grows you should transplant it into bigger pots. This will help you conserve water. I would start with a dixie/styrofoam cup then to a 1 gallon then 5 gallon, etc. Your light hood should probably give you directions on how close it should be but i would guess between 1' - 2' away

another note...you'll have better germination results if you presoak your seeds. fill up a shot class or small container with R/O water and let the seed sit in it for about 1 day. With a touch of the finger, the seed should then sink and may have possibly split to start showing the tap root.

I personally use a combination of this method and the papertowel method. I let it soak for a day and then place the seed b/w two sheets of papertowels (dampened) and put the papertowels in a plastic bag to keep the humidity up. I check the bag until the tap root is showing and then use steril tweezers to sow the seed in my cup with presoaked organic soil about 1/4 - 1/2" deep. about 3 - 5 days later you'll see a sprout.

put your seedlings in a peat pot then you just stick the whole thing in the new pot instead of transplanting and stunting it a few days.
your light should be around 20 to 24 inches away
just my opinions tho everyone got there own. it always worked for me i use clones tho

alright that helps a lot, thanks.

In your opinion, how many plants do you think I could grow under my 600w hps?

The seeds I have are Nirvana's Short Ryder

you have 1 - 600w hps? what size is your grow area? 3'x3'?

yes It's 3x3 and just that one light

depends how big u want your plant to be. i am thinkin atleast 6.no more than 8 prob. i put 30 under 2 1000 hps last year and had good results. now i am legal so i dont have to go so many i just let less plants veg longer and get lots of nice huge buds.if u do 6 and super crop them once you will be pleased i am sure

i didnt see it was 3 by 3 till now.4 would be maxxx

try to make ur room bigger 3 by 5 = 6 plants

yeah I'll try and make it a little bit bigger, if not I can switch it to a bigger closet. Does the short ryder strain yield a decent amount per plant?