Bulb suggestions with PFO ballast?

[Chris]

Well... I finally got to fire up the actinic and MH lights today over the tank. The lighting in the middle is beautiful with the 480 watts(3 x 72") of actinics centered above the tank.

Unfortunately, the two outer MH bulbs are casting a really yellow appearance compared to the rest of the tank. I think i'm going to toss those two bulbs in the closet til the first two are ready to be replaced, and purchase two new 10k+ bulbs to replace the yellow look.

So... any suggestions on a good bulb to run on a 250W PFO tar ballast?

I'll try to post a pic tomorrow with the lights on so you can get a view of what it looks like.

:grin:

[witecap4u]

Are you running all actintic blue vho's?, or any white? Jims xm bulbs looked really nice, and they are cheap, however, that would be way too blue with the actintics if they are just blues. I think he said he is supplimenting them with daylight PC's...

What were you current MH bulbs and how old. Do you have a pic of the tank with them so we can get an idea of what you have, and maybe what you want....cs

[Hammer]

The best looking 10k bulbs I have seen are the Hamilton 10k bulbs. Closely followed by the AB 10ks.
Best way to get a lot of light with good color, and not having to run 400 mh's.
Also remember that the actinic VHO bulbs are usually VERY weak for intensity, and do very little to overcome the yellow in some bulbs.
I have found that using an Osram T8 Blue will overcome a LOT of yellow light. But they only come in 5' length. Of course you can get 4 shorter bulbs to make up for this, but that is just another choice to make.
As for the bulbs Jim run, and any blue bulb, you loose a LOT of intensity with all the different metals needed to make that color. Example is that most 400w 10k bulbs will have twice the PPFD of a 400w Radium. I do not however know the PPFD on the XM bulbs. But imagine it cannot be that much different from the Radium.

[TexasState]

I think those T5 actinic are blue. If you already have Icecap 430 ballast, I'll let you borrow one of my 46.5 actinic t5 to try out for a week if you want to see how it balance out. I have two t5 actinic, I plan to sell one and keep one. I have waterproof endcap and stand-off for the bulb.

Best bet is to buy Justletmein's dual 250W HQI ballast and get yourself some 250W HQI setup.

[Chris]

Here's a shot from one side of the tank.

The actinics look more purple than anything... you can see that by the image in my sig.

You can tell at the very end it's pretty yellow. The 3 actinics cancel out the middle 65K bulbs pretty well though. i was thinking of maybe trying a 10K Ushio.

Anyone have any 250W bulbs and some free time to let me plug one in and judge how it looks? :grin:

http://www.cpugh.com/img/Image1.jpg

[Hammer]

Hard to tell how clean the water is. But remember how much dirty water looks yellow in a bucket, and that is what it turns your lights into, QUICK!
If I could ever FIND it, I have an AB10k bulb you could try. Not sure where it's at though :(

[Chris]

The water is pretty normal. The picture makes the tank look a little dirty but that's due to the hundreds of tube worms and the dust from the south down sand not being cleaned off the back.

Ed if you find that bulb let me know. ;)

[Jimnorris]

IMO I would try the 250 watt 20,000XM Mh bulbs and then supplement using 10,000k or aquasun ERI vho bulbs. JimD is trying this but using a 400 watt single MH and two vhos. My tank is still waiting for the two VHOs that I want to use for supplementation. I do using 4 pcs but they are just over the center brace. So my tank will have six 400 watt XM 20,000ks (alot whiter than the Ushio 20,000ks) and then will be supplement by using two 95 watt vhos 10,000k sitting right in the front.
Jim

[clamgal]

Here's a site that shows the difference between several bulbs. I thought it was pretty useful. It gives you an idea of how the lights may look in your tank.
Hope it helps :D

http://www.marinedepot.com/a_lt_mh_bulb_info.asp?CartId=

[phage]

I really like the look of my 250w 10K Ushio bulbs, they are DE though and i'm assuming you're running SE bulbs.

[JimD]

Judging from the pic, the lighting youre using doesnt look all that bad, the rock and the sand look very white, not too bad in my opinion. As Jim said, Im experimenting with the 400W XM bulb, so far its not too bad as far as color goes with 110W of 10K PC supplimenttion, the lamp was "virgin" when installed and I anticipate it to turn a more crisp white after a week or so burn in period. As far as intensity goes, this lamp is a freakin power house! Very similar to my 250W Iwasaki, just a different color. Its taking me a little time to get used to the change, but I think its gonna be just perfect!
Jim

[Chris]

Maybe you can stagger the VHO so that you get more coverage on the ends.

I think the AB 10K lamp would be nice. It's supposed to have an actual color temp of 13,000K.

Staggering won't work... the 2 VHO's in the back would just end up covering the overflows than lighting much of the tank.

No one has any used 250W bulbs laying around? Man.. you people are spoiled with your 400W's of lighting. :P

[matt]

Chris;

Get the hamilton/Ushio 10ks. They're the only higher kelvin bulb i know of that come close to the PPFD of the iwaskis, which I assume is what you're running. Supposedly, there's a newer iwasaki "R" bulb which is not as yellow as the old ones. You could try those, too. Man, I've heard lots of bad things from folks running bluer bulbs for any length of time. John Moffett used to complain about 'em all the time. I've got an old magizine around that did a pretty thorough analysis of 250W MH bulbs for PPFD and CCT, if you want to have a look at it. But basically what it said was that DE HQI's were the highest in PPFD, then iwasakis, then Ushios, and everything else was way lower. If I remember, the CCT for the DE was about 11K, the ushios 10k, and the new iwasakis around 7k.

On my next tank, I'm definitely going with DE HQI. I'll just start saving now.

HTH
Matt