Stircrazy and other lighting gurus
 

At the moment I am having good success with a hamilton 250w hqi hood on my 175g bowfront running 10k xm de bulbs

My question first off is it possible to go with 250w mogul based xm bulb and lumenmax reflectors using the hqi ballasts I already have.

Second question, would I get enough increase in par to be worth the hassle of changing everything around

Third question, (providing the answer to the other 2 is yes) how much work would it be to change the cords (going from the ballast to the hamilton hood) over to a mogul socket. Would I need an electrician or just someone who thinks they know what they are doing?

I did exactly as you are planning to do as you can see from my sig.

Sunlight Supply sells female socket adapters for their lumenmax pendants so you can easily hook-up any ballast to them as long as you have a wire stripper tool. I put the connections in an electrical box to be safe, but essentially it's just a matter of matching the same-coloured wires. The lumenmax reflectors are far superior to the standard hamilton ones such that I'm able to get away with using only two pendants over a 6' tank.

The increased PAR you get with mogul HQI over DE HQI depends on the bulb, but it does give you more flexibility as you get good PAR from even higher kelvin bulbs. I went from a 175W Hamilton hood to the 250W HQI so I had more dramatic results.

The 10K XM bulb does give a lot of PAR, but you'll probably need actinic supplementation since it still gives off a hint of yellow on an HQI ballast IME.

Marie, I'll give you a hand with your wiring. It's a reasonably easy job, and if we run into any unforseen difficulties my brother is an electrician.

Yep, but you can only use European bulbs. XM, Giesemann, Ushio, etc.

Yes. Big difference, you will also get a bigger light footprint, and more consistent light spread - less hot and cool spots.

You could probably do it yourself in like 1/2 hour for two of them.

It doesn't matter where the bulb is from, I don't think XM is from Europe anyway.

The difference is the starting mechanism, bulbs are either designed to use probe or pule start. Probe start bulbs rely on an extra device in the bulb to fire while pulse start bulbs require an ignitor that is part of the ballast assembly. HQI ballasts are also pulse start.

Sometimes probe start bulbs like the XM will work fine on a pulse start or HQI ballast, lots of people do it. You definitely get more PAR out of them this way but it drives the bulb pretty hard and they can fail prematurely. Ushio pulse start mogul bulbs are a better choice for an HQI ballast but Giesman mogul bulbs are probe start so you risk the same premature failure as using a XM or Hamilton.

Would 250w SE bulbs on an HQI ballast be better then going with a 400w system?



I also forsee another problem, how do I keep my vho's when the MH reflectors take up all the room over the tank

Depends what you mean by "better"? The 250w SE on HQIs will be waaaaay more energy efficient. It also depends on whether you're doing 400w DE or SE. I would assume SE since there isn't much bulb choice in 400w DE. In that case, depending on which ballast and bulb you choose for both setups, the 400w SE setup is likely to only put out about 15-25% more PAR, but for 62.5% more energy.

midgetwaiter is right that the Ushio SE is the best choice. It runs the most efficient on an HQI ballast, and puts out the most PAR. The Ushio 10K is rather yellow though, so you may need to use stronger actinics to pull the color nicer.

I think you will be happier with the SE on HQI than with your current DEs, as I understand you only have 2 MH over a 6 foot tank. The coverage the SEs with have will be quite noticable in your case.

You need to check out this website: http://www.reeflightinginfo.arvixe.com/

You will find that the 250w Ushio 10K run on a PFO HQI ballast has the highest PAR in the 250w range.

The reason why I will never own a bowfront!!! :lol: The best bet is to pick a smaller pendant. Try the Lumenarc mini. BUT, (generally) the smaller the reflector, the less spread of light you will get. Honestly, you would be best off getting a third pendant and using the Lumenarc minis. Then you will have space for your VHO.

At the moment I have 3 250w de metal halides and 2 165w vhos :mrgreen: .


I'm happy with the colour and growth of the corals , the biggest problem I have and the reason I'm looking at changing things is the hamilton hood is very noisy (because of crappy fans) and the light spread is terrible

Oh ok...for some reason I was under the impression you only had two. When/If you switch to the HQI ballasts, you may have to go through a few bulbs before you find the color you want. If you go with Ushio 10K and keep the VHOs that you have the same, you will have a yellower light than you are used to. You will have to figure out a way to change that. Personally, I would use 4 T5s for actinic and put 2 AquaBlue+ type bulbs in and 2 True Actinics in. That would REALLY pull the Ushios whiter/bluer.

Check that website, and it will show you the PPFD (similar to PAR) of each bulb with the PFO HQI ballast. You will notice that when you go with a higher Kelvin you will lose PPFD very quickly.

I really don't like the bluer look or even white. I like the bright sunny day look myself , what I don't like is having the colour red washed out.

If I could find a metal halide bulb that didn't make all my red colours look like dried blood I would toss my vhos in a minute In the mean time my vhos aren't actinics they are the uri 10ks which give the tank a nice pink colour

Ah, in that case you're like me! So I don't think ou have issues with the Ushio 10K, although I would bet you would want at least one of those VHOs to be actinic. The Ushio 10K is very yellow. You'll get hella PAR running those Ushio SE 10K on the PFO HQI ballast.

Add a HOT5 retro fit kit and run a fiji purple bulb?

I like the pink too.

Even easier than switching to T5s would be to use URI / UVL 75.25 VHOs. They are 75% actinic and 25% 10k Tri Phosphor like the URI Aquasuns so you get a really nice pop on red colours but still get the actinic too. Very similar to to the Fiji Purple but still kind of unique.

I'm using the T5 75.25 with the Aquasun 10ks and I love them but it's a bit too much red. I'm going to try the 75.25 with some 12 Actinic Whites soon.

So I have 2 of the needed 3 reflectors (they just so happen to plug right into the hamilton ballasts, no messing around with wiring) and I thought I would try them out tonight to see how bright they really are.

:eek: Does anyone know where I can get sunglasses for my poor fish. :eek:

Ok, sorry I didn't see this sooner, but I just left India.

Ok so as you have been told yes you can upgrade and yes it is fairly easy.

the question I have is are you running and electronic ballast or a normal ballast, if it is electronic then you will get a small increase in output but you will get the other benifits of a larger more even foot print.

If it is a normal M80 ballast you will get all the benifits of the other plus a huge increase in light out put.

as for bulb use, any one is usble as they are all based off German bulbs, even the USHIO which has a probe starter in it still works on an pulse start ballast.

XM bulbs respong suprisingly well to HQI power supplies so they are a good choice in bulbs.

it is definatly not worth it to go to a 400 set up, you already have the ballast, so for the most part you would not gain any output from a 400 over the HQI as there is realy no good ballast for a 400 set up that is made for high output like a HQI. the 400 HQI's are not a HQI ballast and actualy decrease bulb life instead of increasing it as a good HQI setup will.

Steve

They are not electronic ballasts. I decided to go with the xm bulbs because first off they are cheaper and second, according to sanjay they are a bit whiter then the ushios.

So in your opinion Steve, how often should I be changing the bulbs. Are they being overdriven to the point where the bulbs need to be changed more often then every 12 months?

actualy they are not being overdriven at all and should last longer than normaly. I would go a minimum of a year on them and even up to 1.5 years, you have to play it by ear and decide when you want to change them. one way is to have a new set of bulbs and say at 1 year put one new one in and over a coupel days see the differance, then put the old one back in and in a month do it again.. if you start getting a huge change month to month time to change them. the other way is to have a PAR meter and do measurments on them instead.

Steve

Thanks Steve, just what I was hoping to hear :mrgreen: .



These lights are crazy bright, well worth the money I spent to upgrade and so far I don't miss the vhos at all. The 10k xms have a way nicer colour with these ballasts

Why not try upgrading the fans first? alot cheaper than a whole new system.

Well your a bit late with that suggestion :razz:.

New reflectors and bulbs are in and working wonderfully and its not quite a whole new system, I still have the same ballasts

I got rid of my old Hamilton hood and went with lumenmax reflectors on an HQI ballast. What a world of difference despite only having 2 MHs going now instead of 3. It's well worth the upgrade.

I was thrilled to discover the hqi ballasts that come with the hamilton hoods uses the same plug as the lumenmax reflectors, no extra wiring needed