Its safe if you follow the instructions and with the appropriate bulb. Should just be plug'n'play :) Thought about a timer? You can't just stick this on a cheap lamp timer, it won't take the load.

Mini? OK, but this is a pretty powerful light, way more than you need for your small collection. Maybe you could grow a few tomatoes too :) A 250W would do you nicely at this point but of course plants do grow ;)

Thanks for the reply, shrubs! I don't think that I will need a timer as I have a very routine life, but I do have another question. I will order the tempered glass for safty, but what would I need an air cooled fitting for? The room I am going to set up is 7'x7' and I would probably use only half of it. There is one small south facing window also, so I should have plenty of air circulation. If it turns out not to be adequate, I would set up a small fan. So my question is-would I still need an air cooling system or is the ad trying to tempt me to buy something that I really don't need?

Perhaps a few observations on this system would be helpful. The ballast appears to be a magnetic ballast, these consume about 15%-20% of the rated bulb power. In this design, the ballast is built in to the housing, dumping an extra 60W of heat straight into the reflector. This is a significant increase to the heat loading on the housing compared to just the bulb, and it will get HOT! The housing and bulbs are designed to cope with this but the air cooling adapter allows a fan to be ducted directly into the reflector to draw out the hot air. You'd still need a fan, not really a huge gain unless you are working in very close quarters.

You may wish to examine other systems. You can get separate ballasts, that might seem inconvenient but it means that the ballast can be left to gently warm up the corner of the room far from where you and the plants will be. Also, latest technology is an electronic ballast, it only wastes 5%-10% of the rated power so it saves you electricity and doesn't get as hot. Electronic ballasts can also increase bulb life and improve lumen depreciation. You may wish to look at pulse start metal halides. All these things cost more up front but will produce more light from less elctricity and allow you to replace bulbs less often.

Another option:
You can buy CPU heatsinks cheap on eBay. Use high temperature epoxy and silicone glue and glue as many as possible on top. this will help dissipate fixture heat a lot.

dcarch

Thank you both for your help! Now, this is becoming a bit confusing to me. I did purchase the system but as stated, it comes with no fan, that is an option. I had intended to use a floor fan to circulate the air. I want to be sure that I understand what you are telling me-- Are you saying that I need to buy a special fan to cool the system??

I have never had an indoor garden so please bear with me. My cactus usually sit on the windowsill, but I have added a few more and thought it would be fun to make a grow room.

Also, I am not familiar with CPU heatsinks. I looked them up on ebay, but still don't understand what they are. Do they plug into an outlet?

Thank you so much for your help.

No. You don't need a fan to have the fixture working properly. The fan is to keep the area around the fixture cooler.

Heatsink is apassive device requiring no power. It's a piece of aluminum with many fins to help circulate air to keep things cool.

dcarch