New Halide ?

[brewercm]

What is the difference between the Iwasaki 6500 and 6500 eye? Is there any difference or do they only make one style bulb. I've heard reference to both so I wasn't sure.

[R.Allard]

cliff do you still want the halide??if not let me know and ill sell them on maast.
thanks Robert

[brewercm]

I could use one of them but won't be able to do anything until later this week. Possibly the weekend, I also want that Colt coral you were talking about. I can get with you on Saturday or Sunday if that's OK. Really busy this week and not getting home until pretty late.

[R.Allard]

no problem they are both yours.
i know how ya feel i have about 1100 feet of tumbled marble to lay
this week.

[brewercm]

Robert,
Not that it matters, but are the bulbs that you have marked EYE or are they a standard without it. Still not sure about all of that stuff.

[JimD]

Iwasaki bulbs are just that, most are labeled "DL" I believe for DayLight, the "EYE" youre refering to denotes a particular kind of ballast. At least Ive never seen an Iwasaki labeled "EYE", nor have I ever heard of it.

[JimD]

uhh, excuse me while I remove my foot from my mouth, apon closer examination of an Iwasaki bulb, it does indeed say "EYE"

[Ed]

Stole this from a site that sells ballasts....

Magnetic ballasts operate most types of single ended lamps. EYE ballasts are Mercury ballasts designed to operate the Iwasaki 6500K lamps optimally.

Hope this helps.

-Ed

[matt]

The iwasakis that most people use are in fact designed to be run on a mercury vapor ballast, but will do fine on a mh ballast. There was one that came out a year or two ago that supposedly had a slightly higher color temp. The MV ballast makes them run a little less yellow as well. FWIW, iwasakis regularly test much higer than all other mogule based bulbs in terms of PAR and PPFD. With enough actinic support, they're probably about the ideal bulb for reefkeeping; most people don't really like the color, that's why you need a strong actinic support with them. They're also cheap, last a good long time, and easy to find.

There's a guy who wrote a great DIY article for these bulbs with the MV ballast they're designed for. It was called something like "metal halide for $100"

[brewercm]

Thanks folks, they appear to put out a fairly nice white color when supported with 2 110 vho actinic over my 75. I may play with others later once I can upgrade to electronic ballast but are great for now.

[Henry]

Yeah Matt, I did that DIY a while back. this is the link. http://aquarium.union.rpi.edu/rpi.html