HPS...
 

Which bulb I can run of a 400W HPS ballast...

iwasaki ???
10k ushio ???

a 400 watt HPS bulb. not any "true" MH bulb

Steve

so all the bulb that are use in reef keeping can't fit on a hps ballast ????

have you try it ???

here's info. from a green house.

"Halide systems produce an intense blue light that is excellent for vegetative plant growth. The blue light spectrum closely matches spring light and promotes healthy, compact growth in most plants. Choose a metal halide system if you garden indoors with no additional light source or if you need a light system to propagate plants"

"It is if you need supplemental lighting to encourage your plants to fruit and flower. If you garden in a greenhouse and can rely on the sun to provide necessary blue light, an HPS system would be the proper choice for you. The rich red hue of the sodium bulb recreates the autumn sun, stimulating the plant to advance and finish its growing cycle. Flowers and vegetables finished off under HPS light will show tighter, stouter blossoms with increased yields. But during a vegetative cycle of growth, using an HPS light alone may cause plants to grow long and thin, or leggy. Look into a metal halide system for vegetative growth"

There was mention of a "conversion bulb" that is a HPS bulb in the spectrum of a MH.

"Because the conversion process itself takes some energy to accomplish, conversion bulbs aren’t quite as efficient as regular metal halide or high pressure sodium bulbs, but they will give you the best of both worlds with just one light system. "

I ask this question cause I got 3 400w ballast for free 2 of them are M59 and one that is HPS, so I was hoping to find a bulb that can fit on the HPS ballast that I want to use in the middle of my 400w 20k ushio...

well if you could find info on the HPS that mimics MH, your rocking. The red light from HPS won't do in a reef tank. Evil red's

yeah that's why I was hoping some bulb like 400w 10k ushio or 20k radium or 400w iwasaki to work on this ballast cause I know that hps bulb doesn't have the right spectrum....

You need to give more details. A Son Agro 430w "HPS" ballast will fire both the 10k and 20k bulbs.

The M59 will fire an Iwasaki... not sure on the 10k.

It will absolutely maybe fire them :razz: I had a couple of bulbs that worked fine their entire life onM59s, but my new bulbs stopped working after a week or so. M59 ballasts don't have starting circuits built in.

the only bulb we use that is a MV in the fish industry is a Iwasaki. BUT it is a MV conversion bulb which means it was designed as a MH bulb that was made to run in a MV ballast. the reason for this is that MV is very yellow in its light sorce 3500K to 4500K. while this encourages strong green leaf and stem growth it doesent premote the growth of the plants fruit. so the way it wors is the grower uses his MV bulbs all season to get the desired growth of the plant, then he would switch out his MV systems for MH systems to get the higher kelvin light . this got expensive as you woyld have to have two different ballast for each light. Iwasaki saw this and designed a MH bulb that would run on a MV ballast eliminating the need to buy twice as many ballast as you need.

I editited the above as due to being over tired and a little slow I mixed up HPS for MV.

so to make a long story short, if you already have the HPS ballast see if you can take it to some ones house to try it in your ballast. The Son agro is a 430 watt HPS ballast and it runs 10K bulbs awsome, so your ballast might be almost as good as the son agro but you would have to do a comparason to be sure.

Steve