Giesemann HQI Pendant - Ballast

[MarkLW]

We just had a ballast go out on our 10G (Orbitz Power Compact 80W), can't find many places that offer the ballast but it's only $16 so can't complain.

But got me thinking.... we have a double 250W HQI Giesemann Pendant light and at some point one or both of the ballasts are going to go out... where would I find a equal quality ballast that will work on the Giesemann but where I won't have to go to AquaTek and auction off our first child (again...as we got the Giesemann at AquaTek)?

Suggestions?

[alton]

Giesemann is probably the most expensive light out in the market today because of several reasons, one being German not Chinese. If something happens to your Giesemann you are going to enjoy the great service that Aquatek is known for. I wouldn't worry for a long time about ballast problems, if you do call Aquatek and I think you will be pleased, at least I was.

[matt]

It really depends on what you mean by equal quality. The M80 ballast is the "industry standard" magnetic HQI ballast that drives DE bulbs. As far as I know, all M80 ballasts will perform equally, so you could get a PFO 250 HQI, or even a raw ballast from hellolights, wire it up, and you'd be driving the bulb about as well as anything. To be honest, I don't know if the geisemann ballast is an M80 or if it's electronic. If it's electronic, you could get an icecap. You might check Sanjay's site to see how the bulbs perform with the geisemann ballast vs the icecap vs the M80. The research I did before buyng a 250 DE mini pendent led me to buy the PFO HQI ballast, although it does draw more electricity than the electronics. From what I remember, the geisemann pendents only performed so-so in terms of PAR.