MH 101

[Neal359]

i am seting up my 72 bow fromnt in about 2 weeks shortaly after i will be puting 2 250 mh on the tank and need some good info on them i have fond a few placeses that look like thee have good pricec (thanks for the help) by their are just so many difrent 250 wat bulbs i know some are more blue and some are more yellow i have a set of antic no lights right now and what are the difrenses between Iwasaki HQI and, normal balests that can run both is their some typ of advantige to having HQI or Iwasaki the HQI look to be much more $$$ and any good advice with them thanks for the help

[Aragorn]

Well,
I'll throw in a couple of cents. By no stretch of the imagination am I an expert in Lighting. However, I will share w/ you some of my thoughts and experiences.
I use Iwasaki 6500K 250watt MH bulbs exclusively. They work well for me, my inverts like it(at least that's what they've told me [img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img] ), and the color is just fine. I have a theory regarding the 6500K bulb. You see, in one of the books I'm reading, "The Ecology of Indonesian Seas", the author states that at a depth of up to 3 meters, light is "shifted" more toward the yellow than blue. Corals in this habitat have Zooxanthellae and pigments to take advantage of that.
That's why I believe the 6500K seems to do better for inverts although some folks have success w/ 10000K or higher.
Anyway, as far as ballasts... I use both Icecap and the Blueline E-Ballast. As much as I hate to say it(and it may be just a bad unit), I have had more problems w/ the Icecap than the Blueline. 2 days out of 10, my Icecap will not "fire" my MH bulb. My Blueline's fire everytime. With the Blueline, you can also use different bulbs and they're more energy efficient. They do give off RF though. I'm done. HTH

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One Ring to rule them all. One Ring to find them. One Ring to bring them all, and in The Darkness bind them.

Tahoereefs.com

[This message has been edited by Aragorn (edited 05-28-2001).]

[Ninong]

OK, time to move to the Lighting forum. [img]/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

[golfish]

Doh!!! you mean I wasted my money on HQI's [img]/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

Neal, The best thing to do is find a few tanks with MH's and see what you like. If you use MH's you will probably want to use some kind of actinics for the dawn\dusk effect. If you use Iwasaki's you will WANT, not need to use actinic supplement. When it comes to HQI's the 250's blow away all bulbs except for the butt ugly Iwasaki 400 watter. I also use an Iwasaki 400 and its has to have 4x55watt blue PC's to make the color close to what the 10K HQI's put out. Another BIG advatage to HQI's is the heat, they put out a lot less heat than the 400 watt Iwasaki does....

The bad news is the HQI's cost more but are well worth it considering all the extra cash you'll spend on trying to make the Iwasaki's look good.......

Mark

[blue]

Golfish,
Yes you did waste your money[img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img] J/K I said it was just my opinon and my check books opinon tooo[img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img] HEHEHE HQI's are good but i dont see that there worth it yet JMO

[img]/ubb/flames.gif[/img]Blue[img]/ubb/flames.gif[/img]

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Think befor you speak or dont speak at all!!!

[golfish]

Ok Blue, So now I have to ask if you have used both?

[Joe]

Neal359,

I use Blueline Ballasts and bulbs (250w) with two 110w 50/50 VHO's. The Blueline ballasts very deffinately give out RFI (TVI). I have had a couple of suggestions on how to solve this problem.

I received a reply from Blueline Aquatics and here is all they had to say.

"Is the ballast on the same circuit as the TV? If it is, put them on different circuits. If that doesn't work, Radio Shack sells an inline noise filter, purchase one of these and that should clear up your problem."

It is a know problem and I would have thought that they would offer to send me an inline filter. Quite optimistic of me.
What they failed to mention is whether I should put this filter on the electrical feed to the ballast's or the television.

Joe

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"The President is aware of what is going on. That's not to say there is something going on."

[Chicago]

there have been a lot of threads onthe rf issue...i to wuld like to go withthe eballast but i am holding off untill i hear that there has been complete success in the noise filter rf debate...

[blue]

Golfish,
I personally havent used both. My LFS has a 120 with a 250 watt HQI on one side and a 400 watt 6500k iwaski on the other yes the color may be diffrent but the corals seem to grow the same. So i dont see why spend more if you cand do the same with less money. Again JMO.

[img]/ubb/flames.gif[/img]Blue[img]/ubb/flames.gif[/img]

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Think befor you speak or dont speak at all!!!

[Chicago]

golfish..you mention a 400 watter above..i assume you are talking about a mogul base bulb correct??? anbut what type of ballast for it?

[golfish]

Chicago,
As far as I know mogul base is all they make in 400 watters. I have a 400 watt Iwasaki bulb driven by a PFO standard MH ballast (MV would probably be a little better) I also have 4x55watt blue PC's, these are all mounted in a 24" PFO reflector. This unit sits in the middle of my 48"long x 24" tall x 30 wide 150 gal tank. I have a 2x250 watt 10K HQI's mounted in PFO mini pendants driven by a dual PFO HQI ballast, one on each side of the PFO reflector.


Now, to give a little credit to Blue. The Iwasaki's are brighter and do cover more ground than the mini pendants, but the heat coming off the Iwasaki's is HOT. If I had a 24" wide tank and no glass cross bar in the middle, the HQI's would be all I need....



[This message has been edited by golfish (edited 05-28-2001).]

[Ironreef]

250w hqi and 250w Iwaski depending on which sanjay study you read and if you don't use uv shield put out the same par. they both are better than 400w 10k. if you don't plan on actinics I would go for the 250hqi. I use 250w iwaski and actinic but my tank doesn't look yellow with just iwaski. 400w put out alot of heat. But if you plan on having a sps tank I would go with 400w iwaski. look at sanjay tank it doesn't look yellow. Theres a few others who use iwaski400w there tank doesn't look yellow . sanjay uses no light actinic that is cheap. But if you can afford the bulb replacement 250w hqi maybe what you want. But a few ppl I know use 50-50 with there hqi. makes it look to blue. Its all preferance some like it blue some like white. I'm sure nobody likes yellow.

[scubadude]

I agree that the Iwasakis are the way to go! here is a picture of Joannes tank with JUST 2 250watt Iwasakis powered by the graybar ballast this is also probably the most effecient especially if you can build your own hood



Hope you dont mind dear [img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]

I really think you would have Excellent growth with the 400 watters but I think it wouldnt be worth it on the flipside of having to deal with the high temperature JMO [img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Neal359]

the temp is one thing that i am a little woreid about. i have 2 fans right now i also have a set of vho and no the no light are antic bulbs what i was thinking of is 2 250 5500K (not to sur what the 5500K mens) and ether the vho light or no light do you think the vho would het up the water to much and all i would have to do is get one more antic vho light

[blue]

If it were my tank i wouldnt waste my money on HQI. If you are wanting to have SPS and clams mostly i would get 400watt halides and use iwaski bulbs this will be much more brighter then HQI and is like 2 dollars more then the 250's.
Im putting dual 400's on my 80. JME/JMO

[img]/ubb/flames.gif[/img]Blue[img]/ubb/flames.gif[/img]

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Think befor you speak or dont speak at all!!!

[thezookeeper]

No problem Rocky! I want people to see the coloring. I hope it helps someone make up their mind. I know I was going CRAZY over deciding on the lighting. I'm so happy this was the end result.

On the heating issue: I have 2 fans built into the canopy. It seemed to keep the temp at around 80. I'll keep ya posted on this. I don't think the VHO's would add much heat at all. HTH

[img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]
Joanne


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That which does not kill us makes us stronger...like lifting those salt buckets.

[Neal359]

whats the best way to aclamate coral to mh lighting??