good comparason info on bulbs

[stephane]

Originally posted by StirCrazy:
Stephan, you posted this on the other thread and the Germans said they use this bulbs for SPS on up to 24" deep tanks did you miss that? or do you not believe the Germans over the French? :D

That pic is not really a good one as the 150 is in an inferior pendant. If you look at the other pic they are in identical pendants.

Besides I am only comparing them to a 250watt bulb here... so don't turn this thread into a RC argument... I have not claimed here that the AB is a good of lights and everything I have posted has been factual and standardized... not the result of a half assed visual light test with to totaly different fixtures / reflectors. Personally I don't care what anyone uses for lights I just thought people would want to see some hard and fast #'s that were collected in a scientific and standardized method.

Steve

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">in FACT this is what they say so dont turn it to your advantage OK

i have to agree with much of Stephane's comments. Here in Europe the 150w DE lamps would be looked upon as softie tank. 250W for mixed or SPS corals.

I have run 150w DE Arcadia 10k in the past and got good colouration out of Pocillipora damicornis and a Seriatopora hystrix, most Acropora sp. were healthy and grew but no great colouration. On upgrading to 250w DE BLV 10k I have had excellent colouration of Acropora in my current tank although I was dissapointed that the size of the reflector in the Arcadia (similar to AB/Giesseman etc) was small so the tank only had on really bright spot with rapid drop off of light near the edges of the tank.

Now, I have just upgraded to 400w mogul BLV 10k for my new tank. First, I would like to say these lights are crisp white just like my 250w BLV DE 10k unlike some reports in the US of them been yellow. Secondly, I have measured PAR with my Apogee PAR meter and the 400w are putting out around 1.6x as much light as the 250w at 175cm from centre of the bulb. I am waiting for them to burn in the same amount of time as I did the 250w before taking any measurments to list.

I have never tried any of the US metal halide bulbs as all our European bulbs require ballast with ignitor which are cheaply and easily available.