Ushio - Question & warning

[NaCl_H2O]

I am having problems with one of my 400w PFO pendants (see other posts searching for a ballast :angry). One of my 10Ks won't light reliably, so I figured it was the ballast. Premium Aquatics pointed me towards the bulb, so I switched Ballasts and the problem followed the bulb & not the ballast. According to Premium: "Ushio has worked with PFO for over 7 years, but recently Ushio has had more problems, we believe they redesigned their bulb. Seems a few of the higher quality German lamps are having trouble firing on standard magnetic ballasts."

I have three other Ushio 400w 10Ks that are working fine, but am worried they may start acting up too?

So ... what 400w 10K bulb would y'all recommend to run on a standard PFO magnetic ballast?

[witecap4u]

xm's running fine on a dual pfo ballast at 7-8 months use. i'll probably try the 15K or what ever the new ones are on the next round.

I have some ushio 20K's that around 10months use, started to not fire. I tapped them a little and they would fire.

cs

[TexasTodd]

Ushio 10kk bulbs are good bulbs.

All European bulbs are pulse start. They are designed to be run off a pulse start ballast which has an extra device in it to send a higher initial starting power surge. Ushio, Radium, Geisman-I think, AB, etc.

Magnetic ballasts are called "probe start" ballasts. XM, Hamilton,

[NaCl_H2O]

Any more suggestions on 400w 10k (probe start) bulbs? So far XM and Hamilton.

Looking for crisp white, maybe a little towards the blue rather than the yellow. Need to order one or two ASAP!

[NaCl_H2O]

Well, I ordered two 400w 10K Hamilton mogul bulbs. Looking at on-line descriptions:

Hamilton: Crisp Ice White appearance, full spectrum - the combination of different wavelengths produce different colors in the spectrum and appear to the naked eye as crisp ice white light. Significantly brighter than U.S. made 10000K bulbs

XM: The crisp-white color will illuminate your tank nicely. It is very similar to an Ushio10,000K bulb but slightly more yellow

We shall see ...