I was given a light meter for the holidays last year and still am trying to figure it out.

It's a Hydrofarm Light Intensity Meter. It has two scales on it. One for "Sun & High Intensity" and one for "Fluorescent". Here is a picture of the meter in question: http://www.hydrofarm.com/pb_detail.php?itemid=3087# (click on picture to enlarge it)

As you can see it has two settings on the bottom...500 and 5000. I want to measure the fluorescent light so I use the 500 setting.

The problem is that I don't know what the needle is telling me when it goes to 35, 40, 45, etc. It says the numbers are 10X.

When looking up a plant there are recommended light levels and I want to be able to understand if I'm close to the levels needed, but I don't know what this device is telling me.

Example: African Violets have a max. foot candle hour recommendation of 37,500 and min. of 15,000. When my meter goes to 30(X10 =3,000 foot candles) and I'm lighting them for 10 hours, I think that equals 30,000 foot candle hours. Is this correct or am I missing something?

One more question: If I put my light meter where my plants will be and the measurement is higher than the max. recommended foot candle hours what should I do? Use less light or fewer hours?

Please Help!!!

Mary