Are these safe to use for reef tanks?

[RedDragon]

I was at home depo. and I saw a holegen lighting system 400w up to 1500wfor $13.00 an these good to use on a reef tank, and I also saw some HM bulbs 150 up to 400 are those safe to use with reef tanks too? :roll:

[MikeP]

Sure you could use them but the only thing you'd grow is algae. These lights have a color temperature of something like 4000kelvin or maybe less if I remember correctly and you will be missing a lot of the spectrum and intensity of halides. Some people have retrofitted a certain type of halogen ballast to run Iwasaki 6500k bulbs though.

[Hammer]

Halogon is a LOT of wasted electricity into heat. And color spectrum is a lot lower then 4000k actually.
It is a Mercury vapor ballast that is used to fire the Iwasaki 6500k bulb.