New kid to MH

[Nano_Steve]

hey gang,

well im happy to say that i will soon be joining the ranks of the non nano reefers. its a bit sad to me but i will get over it.

my question is i went to aquatek asking about lighting for my new 33 gal corner tank and bruce suggested i get an hqi ballast. when in houston, chris pugh told me that he really liked the 10k ushio bulbs and that i should buy accordingly. i need to know exactly what all is required for me to buy(so far i know of a ballast and a bulb) in order to get a functional 250 watt metal halide up and running??? PLEASE HELP!!!!

also do y'all think this might be something i should look into???
http://www.championlighting.com/e/env/0001BL5aQqZdrNoUx05C8F3/index.html?link=/Products/Lighting/macro.html

thanks all, steve

[Derek B]

I haven't heard too many good things about Champion Lighting. Might want to be careful buying anything from them. You will be much better off with Premium Aquatics or Hello Lights. Excellent customer service and they stand behind their products.

To answer your question, PFO makes an excellent magnetic ballast for a great price. Electronic ballasts are great, but they tend to have more problems in the long run. As far as the bulbs, I had Iwasakis for about a year. Growth was great, but coloration of the corals as well as the aesthetics were poor. You need lots of actinic suplimentation. Right now I run the 20K XM's and have been very pleased. Corals look much more vibrant under them and the growth, although not as good as the sakis, is still good. I hear 10K's are nice as well. I would go with either the 20K XM's with no supplimentation or 10K's with a little actinic.

[SuperXdude]

i bought mine from cooltouch lighting.

website isn't functioning, but I got a VHO/MH hood combo
for $395 plus shipping.

A little pricey, but it works **** good.

[Buster]

Steve,
If you want to have a nice cheap setup you could do a 400watt pendent with a 20k xm bulb. That way you don't have to supplement, and you can have great color. Nice bulb, that I think you won't need anything else. Being a small corner tank I think that is going to be your best bet. You will just have to hard of a time getting a vho, power compact system for it. Remember it is a odd sized tank. Let me know what you decide to do. I am Techgrad about champion. I have seen way to many lighting systems come in damaged or dented and they are like oh well. You can get PFO metal halide ballast for cheap, you could be set up bulb and all probably for less then 200. Good Luck.

Nick

[captexas]

Hey Steve -
As Buster mentioned, the fact that you have a corner tank limits what you can do lighting wise to supplement the metal halide lamp. The shortest VHO bulbs you can get are 24in. long. You might be able to squeeze a compact flourescent bulb in there next to the halide if you needed to. Therefore, you want to take your time and look around at different metal halide bulbs and setups. Some bulbs like the Iwasaki look a little on the yellow side and most people supplement with blue actinic light to balance it out. At the other end, some 20k bulbs will look very blue and need 10k light from the compact or VHO lamps. Then you have regular single ended mogul lamps and then the double ended HQI lamps.
You also have to decide if you are going to mount your lighting in a canopy or just have a pendant fixture.

All have a different look to them and what it really comes down to is what looks best for you. I suggest checking out as many peoples tanks as you can that have halides so you get a feel for the different bulbs.

When I started off with metal halide on my 58g tank, I had a 400 Iwasaki bulb along with four 95watt VHO bulbs. I tried different lamps on the VHO's to balance out the yellow of the saki, but even with 4 actinic bulbs, I didn't like it. After seeing Jim Norris's tank with the Hellolights 20k XM bulbs, I really liked the way they looked. I now have an XM bulb with 2 actinic and 2 10k VHO lamps. I'm going to set up my 75g tank with two 400watt XM metal halides and only two VHO 10k lamps.

Hope that helps a little. I know I went crazy trying to figure out what kind of halide to set up as well. :-D

Chris

[JayS]

Never used them but hear good things about the place below.

They have a good package deal for a 400W MH unit:

PFO Mogul PENDANT, 400W radium 20K bulb, 400W
PFO HQI ballast $299 + shipping

http://www.tridacnareef.com/PFOL.html

[Buster]

Steve,
If you come to San Antonio sometime Friday or this weekend, I can show you a Radium bulb 20k, a xm 20k and a 10k hamilton, and I will let you decide what you like. I will turn off my vho's so you can pick, but if I know you, you aren't going to want to clutter the top of you tank. I learned this from many years of experience is that the hardier it is to get access to your tank the more likely you are to ignore the tank. I have many setups in my day. I would be more then glad to help show you the lights. I have alot. Oh yeah I also have a ushio??? I think that is how you spell it. It is a 20k also, but I think that bulb puts off no light at all. Just give me a call when you want to get together. I could show you some of the LFS's although they ain't nothing compared to Houston. Look forward to talking to you.

[Nano_Steve]

hey guys,

thanks so much for the replies!!!

chris,

the info you gave me was exactly what i wanted to know concerning bulbs! thank you!

nick,

i hope i will be able to make it down this week but im not sure since i spent my money on the tank. if i am able to make it down there i would absolutely love to check out your setup!!! it sounds incredible!

jay,

thanks for the post! ill keep this offer in mind as an option for later!

thanks again all, steve

ps i am still a little in the dark about if there is anything else other than a ballast and bulb i need to get a working mh. i am looking most likely towards a ceiling hung pendant for my odd shaped setup.

[captexas]

Steve -
Other than the ballast and the bulb, all you need is a good reflector and any wiring you need to go from the ballast to the mogul/lamp socket and from the ballast to the electrical outlet. If you go with a pendant, the reflector is basically built into the fixture and most fixtures will already have wiring with them if you buy a complete ready to run unit. As you are in Austin, you should contact Jim Norris. If you were at the meeting at his house awhile back, you will remember the tank he had out in his garage. Recently, he has set it up to test how 4 different metal halide bulbs affect the growth of corals and clams. That would be the perfect way to check them out and compare side-by-side. Jim is a great guy and I'm sure he would be glad to let you check them out. He is also a distributor for Hellolights.com which is an excellent place to check out for your lighting needs. He can order whatever you want from them.

Hope that helps,
Chris

[Buster]

Money???? You don't need money. Only enough money to drive yourself down here. I will show you the town for free dude. I don't mind showing you around. I just got about 10 different frags from a good friend of mine. Man the tank is full. I am going to be screwed when they grow. hehe. As we all know they do.

[Tim Marvin]

I'll have to go with Joshua's advice. The sunlight supply reflector has very good spread. Good clean look and great lightinging with the AB bulb. It also runs cooler on the bottom side so less heat transfer to the water. I have tried a lot of different set-ups and this is the one I am sticking with. I suppose any ballast would do, but I am useing Ice Cap with an Ice Cap timer. Excellent acropora growth.

[matt]

For your shape tank, I also would go with Josh's advice. PFO makes a DE mini pendent as well as sunlight supply, but if the prices are comparable, I'd go with the sunlight supply because it looks a little nicer and probably has a somewhat better reflector set up. One thing to compare is just getting the whole sunlight supply set up rather than using the icecap. If you buy everything from one place, you'll save on shipping.

Just to be clear, what you're looking at is a DE (double ended) bulb in a mini pendent with a HQI ballast. The mogule bulbs are much bigger and require a bulkier enclosure/reflector. For your tank this may present a problem. The 250W DE bulbs probably throw comparable light to a 400W mogule set-up, and probably less heat, which will be very important for a small tank. Actually, a 150W DE pendent would probably be PLENTY of light for a 33 gallon tank. A 400W mogule over such a small tank would give you a nice 33 gallon batch of "caldo de pescado" I'm afraid.

Chris was talking about the ushio mogule base bulbs, probably. That's what I have. If you want to go that route, I would go with a 175W. You could get the PFO mogule pendent and ballast. However, you'd still have a big fixture and the price difference between this and the DE pendent will not be too much, maybe $100 difference if that. I could be wrong on this.

Good luck,
Matt

[MikeP]

Steve, just an observation from me. I have 2x 250w DE HQI with an electronic ballast. The bulbs are Aqualine Buschke 10ks. While I like the color it's a little yellow/white and even with actinic supplementation it's not as ncie color as the old VHO set up I had. You may want to look into the 250 watt 20k bulb from XM - hello lights carries them but is out of stock at the moment. These bulbs are a lot bluer if that's what you want.

[Nano_Steve]

hey gang,

i truly cannot tell you how grateful i am that you all have responded so well to what i have asked. the advice i have received so far has led me to many hours of research and web browsing and i have a few new questions to ask.

as some of you have pointed out, my setup is an odd shape and will require as little space taken up by my lighting as possible. i am looking for COLOR!!! growth is a perk but mainly i want color. i have heard that certain bulbs do certain things to corals(some give great growth but not great color, some vice versa, and some a good mix in the middle) i personally am not extremely concerned with fast growth but i am concerned with how my corals will look so i am really interested in the more color than growht bulbs.[i think this has been the most redundant paragraph i have ever written :lol: sorry]

i have decided(from y'all's great advice) to go with the double ended ballast and bulbs. i have been checking out hello lights and they have a 250W 20K DE XM bulb for a fair price and i wanted to know if from what i have said before this will be the bulb for me. also i have little to no room for supplementation so i was wondering if this will give me a crisp color to everything in the tank without pc or vho???

i haven't yet decided what ballast i want, i am leaning towards a magnetic rather than electric from what i have heard so far. but what is the difference, if any, between probe starting and pulse firing??? do i even need to be concerned with this???

again all, thank you SO much for helping me this far and thanks in advance for answering my new questions!!!

steve

[Buster]

Steve,

I think you won't need to supplement with running a 20k XM. If you were running like a 20k ushio or something you probably would because it is a real dull bulb, so you probably would have to do the reverse, which is run vho white's or something.

The question for probe ver's pulse. Basically if you were going to run a german bulb like a radium, which is still one of my favorites then you will need something to give it that extra kick, remember oversea's they run 220v instead of us which run 110. The XM bulb is the american version of the Radium, just a tad brighter, but still awesome color. So you don't need a pulse start, you can get away with a probe start ballast if you run a xm bulb. You remember seeing Jim Norris's tank. I mean wow the color from the xm bulb's was just awesome. Good luck, remember the offer is still there if you want to see the different bulbs. I also went to a buddies yesterday that has a 180 running three 400watt 20k radiums, and it looked awesome.

[witecap4u]

I believe(and correct me if im wrong) that if you are going with a DE bulb, that you will need an HQI ballast. I dont think there is a pulse/probe option on HQI ballast.

If I were going 250W, I would get the Icecap ballast. They are like $120 bucks or so, and claim to fire anybulb (IIRC), and Icecap has a good reputation and good warranty.

One thing you should think about ahead of time, unless its not option, is $$. Give us and Idea of what you want to spend and we can give you an idea of what you should get.

cs

[Buster]

Witecap4u,

That is a great point. Never thought about that. Yeah, you probably are right about the hqi de ballast.

Also the icecap ballast have always been a great reliable ballast. I think of the ones I have seen sold, I think I have only seen maybe two come back that stop working after a while of service, but icecap is always about trying to make it right, which I think alot of businesses have steered away from these days. Either way I don't think you could loss with a icecap.

You also made a good point by saying decide in the beginning on how much you are willing to spend, because I know to some people they do this hobby on a limited budget, and the last thing you want to do is pay to much for something.

[Nano_Steve]

hey whitecap(chuck wasnt it???),

that is great to hear about not having the option between pulse and probe since that gives me one less decision to make.

on the order of cash. when i first started this hobby someone told me that if you are worried about money then this is the wrong hobby for you. i dont know if i agree with him 100% but to the extent of creating the closest and most realistic environment for my animals i do. i want to buy the best lighting that my money can buy, so if that means that i have to buy one piece and then save up for the next so be it. but i am, as im sure we all are, a little impatient and i want to buy it all and have it running the day the package arrives. so with that i am looking around no more than $300-400??? hopefully that will set me up with what i need, i dont know.

nick,

yeah i think i will end up going with the 250w 20k de xm so ill need to plan accordingly. do y'all think i should get a 400w ice cap ballast or just stick with 250w??? what difference does it make if i run it on a more powerful ballast???

also, if anyone thinks that my decisions so far are too out of reach for my experience level or have a better suggestion, please by all means steer me in the right direction! all input is appreciated. so far i have been looking at pfo ballast and hqi and since i had decided with the de bulb hqi is the route i need to take. so y'all say icecap makes the best eh? where can i find a good website for them? hello lights is a little confusing for me so i might need some help.

thanks again, steve

[TexasState]

They don't have double HQI in 400Watts version. I heard good thing about 400Watts XM 20K single socket bulb, but haven't heard much about 250Watts XM 20K HQI double socket.

If you put down a $375 deposit, I'll let you borrow my complete Sunlight Pendant w/ Icecap timer, ballast, AB HQI bulb for a week to test it out for a week. Everything is wired up and operational, no needs to worry about wiring it up wrong. You do need to buy a ceiling hanging kit (about $5 at Lowes depend on what you buy.) Any scratch(es) or broken stuff(s), or delay in return and it come out of your deposit.

[witecap4u]

Chad not Chuck, but close..... :-D

Anyways, the Icecap ballast is selling for about $125 at Premium Aquatics and at Marine Depot as Josh pointed out.

You also said that you were going with a pendant, and were looking for the best look. Its going to be harder to add supp. lighting with the pendant, however, I think to get the best look, you will want supp. lighting. I think you should go around and look at other tanks, and find the one you think looks like what you want, and find out what it is running, and model yours after that.

I live in Bastrop, but if you want to look at mine, you are welcome to come out. I have a 400W 20K with two 18" NO daylights on my corner tank.

HTH

cs

[Buster]

Steve,

You don't need to go with a 400watt metal halide. I must admit I went a little over board when I bought my lighting, but you know I should be able to grow anything expect low light stuff hehe. My love though is for acropora's not low light stuff. With a 250w you will be at 7.5 wpg, which ain't bad at all dude. I am going to be running close to 20 wpg. That is almost insane, but you know still ain't as bright as the sun. :lol: I don't think you can go wrong with a 250w. I wouldn't be trying to push a 250w bulb though off a 400watt ballast, you would almost me begging for trouble, as I am told most ballast don't go backwards, but some do. You know though if you are going to run a 250watt bulb, buy a 250watt ballast. From what I can tell from what you wrote about saying you are more worried about coloring then speed of growth I probably wouldn't even think about a 10K. I was running a 10k which was bright, but the acropora's turned brown, and now that I am running a 20K the color is finally coming back in them... Thank god. This is just my own personal observation though. I think you can be set up with bulb though for under 300... Or atleast I would hope you can.

[Nano_Steve]

lol...thanks for the offer vinh but knowing myself i think it is best that i only deal with my own stuff. ive had friendships lost over borrowed things and id rather that not happen between any of my friends in this hobby. i do appreciate your offer though!!!

you also make a good point that i didnt catch until researching after you had said something vinh, about there not being such a thing as a 400 watt de.

joshua,

i was unaware of the differences between magnetic and electric. knowing what you have told me i think i will be looking into electric for sure :shock: i dont want any baked fish until i have decided they are too big and fry them up!!!... totally kidding. :o

so ok...heres an update...

250W DE 20K XM bulb
250W Electric HQI IceCap Ballast
Ceiling Hanging Kit
PC Fans x2

what else do i need, what type of wiring should i look into and what about reflectors and what not or do those come with the ballast? id really like to have a single pendant that i hang from my ceiling that looks a bit nice also.

i really hope im going about this the right way, i definitely dont want to screw anything up so please forgive me if i repeat myself more than once concerning what i will be purchasing.

steve

[witecap4u]

Steve, here is a list of what you will need (from wall to tank), if you go with just the MH and no supp. lighting.

1.)Powercord(usually comes with ballast but not always)
2.)Ballast
3.)Wiring from ballast to pendant(probably included with pendant but double check)
4.)DEPendant(will include socket and reflector and probably glass)
5.)Bulb
6.)Ceiling Hanging kit

I dont know for sure if you will need the two PC fans. What was your plan for those anyways?
Like I said before, I think you should take a look around at some tanks before deciding on what you go with and model your choices after what you like....

CS

[JimD]

! 400W XM on a standard PFO ballast, with 2 VHO or PC 10K's, viola, instant perfection.

[Nano_Steve]

http://oceanencounter.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=OE&Product_Code =2HMHS&Category_Code=ICMH

hey y'all,

vinh, you're definitely the man for finding this one for me!!! it seems that this offer has everything i am looking for except the bulb is different. im thinking that i will go with this offer seeing as how it is the best deal i have seen and its all from one place(just one shipping cost) if i do, would anyone be interested in either buying or trading the bulb that comes with it for cash or an xm that you might have lying around(note to self: yeah right)

anyways, if anyone is interested hit me back!

thanks again vinh! steve

[TexasState]

There's no need to for you to buy something that you don't want to use.
Premium Aquatic sponsor us $75 out of $150 GC for the Logo Contest. You should try to call them up and let them put together a Sunlight/Icecap setup for you w/out the bulb. You can't loose w/ PA b/c they're pretty competitive. Jim Norris of Tanku.net have an account w/ both Hello Light and PA. Tim Marvin up the street from you does have an account w/ PA too.