Lights flicker then turn off. Help!

I just plugged in my 400w MH light and the blue gas in the bulb lit up, but not enough to put out even as much light as a 7W CFL. After about 3 or 4 minutes the light intensity kicked and started flickering and got about as bright as a 15w or 20w CFL. The ballast made a ticking, flickering, type of sound also and then the light kicked back down to a very dim blue glow again as if Metal Halide was igniting but couldn't get started up all the way. I have had the ballast on for about 2 hours now hoping it just needed to warm up but no success.

Does anybody know what's happening?

The bulb is new so that's not an issue. I think it's a problem with the ballast but I'm not sure.

check your ballast and make sure you got it all hooked up properly is my first thought

My first thought is bum light was it used.

its sounds like your ballast got burned out or possibly if its not from a grow store out of manufactures box u might have the wrong ballast. if runing an extention cord and surge protector check that equipment

Sounds like you blew your bulb. Those fuckers are expensive too..sucks.

It's a Hydrofarm 400w MH Ballast running with a new bulb straight from a hydro shop. The ballast isn't new though. Maybe the ballast is burnt out like Rj said.

My mothers are catching ambient light from the 210w of New Wave T5's I have on my clones about a foot away. Do you think this is enough light to keep my mothers from flowering until I get this figured out tomorrow? The ambient light from the T5's is about as bright as a few 20w CFL's. I just want to make sure that the drop in light that my mothers are getting from 400w to what it is now isn't significant enough to start my mothers flowering.

As far as I know, cannabis plants only need minimal light to keep them in veg mode. Anybody know if the drop in light intensity could possible trigger flowering on my mothers? That would really suck

it wont start flowering, dont worry.

I forgot to post an update when I solved the problem but here it is. The bulb I had was dead on arrival. The bulb was new from the store and turned out to be a lemon so save those receipts people.

nomaninsf said:

I forgot to post an update when I solved the problem but here it is. The bulb I had was dead on arrival. The bulb was new from the store and turned out to be a lemon so save those receipts people.

Click to expand...

always do never know when shit will fuck up on ya..

keeping the reciepts is also a good way to figure out how much youve sunk into growing too, lol. I've got every receipt from 3 years ago to the present.

nomaninsf said:

I forgot to post an update when I solved the problem but here it is. The bulb I had was dead on arrival. The bulb was new from the store and turned out to be a lemon so save those receipts people.

Click to expand...

It was probably damaged from bad handling by the delivery company/mail. Had the same thing happening to our 600w bulb...or not exactly but it got its lifetime majorly reduced by having my growpartners head hitting the reflector a couple of times and 2 grow he he hooked it up to a ungrounded outlet and it started flicker and shut itself off within a day or two, it was used for about 4-5 months in total and was a high quality bulb that should have last like 3 years i think by the manufacturers info. Not same cause but showed similar symthoms

yeah, its probally that someone wasnt careful enough with it. i had a similar experience but w/cfls. I guess at one point the whole big box of them fell or something cuz i bought 4 individual 42w cfls and all 4 were junk. it was a good deal in the end for me though, lol, I called up the manufacturer and they sent me $50 in coupons that were as good as cash for their products, then i took em back to the store and got my money back i spent on them back.