[Ltspd]

Well the HQI DIY setup is almost complete. I have all 3 mh running, (2) 250w on the ends and (1) 150w in the center. Let me say WOW ! I really like the color, much more than my Iwasaki's with actinic's. So far I have no actinics running with the hqi's. I should have them wired up later tonight or in the morning. I dont really think I need them while the mh's are running, but I will make that call when I can fire them also.

The light spread is very good. The 250w's are on each end of my 60" long tank. They are futher out then the Iwasaki's were and I have these turned perpindicular to the long axis of the tank. I was concered that they wouldnt spread out as much but they seem to do fine. The tank was well lit with only 2 bulbs running, and the 3rd really made it lite up.

The LN ballast fired the bulbs quickly and they are NOT flickering. They seemed to fire the bulbs quicker than the Iwasaki's, but they were old. The Aromat ballast I got off of ebay (I swaped for a 120v) also fired the 150w right up.

The holders worked very well from lampsnow. I tightened one side down and left the other side somewhat loose to "float". That was on the 250w only. The 150w are spring loaded and they should allow expansion/contraction on their own.

I cut more heat excape holes in the hood, and have provisions for (2) 3" radio shack fans on top. I dont have any fans running or wired up yet. So far the tank temp has climbed .2 degrees in 1-1/2 hrs. I will be keeping a close eye on this.

I will post some pics later on tonight or in the morning.

[golfish]

Come on Paul..........you can put a thread up like this and not have pictures. I'm gald to hear you like the lights.

[Ltspd]

Here are some pictures. Remember I cant take pictures. The shot of the whole tank looks much better in real life.

http://community.webshots.com/user/ltspd

[scubadude]

I know you probably have the fans blowing out of the canopy, thus sucking air out of the canopy? But my question is isnt that in essence blowing air onto the bulbs? Maybe i didnt see right in the pictures...can you please explain. And is the No. 8 picture with the new HQIs burning? You have 2-250 Double ended HQI's on the ends and one 150 Double ended HQI in the middle correct?....great workmanship!! Did you build that reflector or buy it that way? Glad you like your bulbs.....watch that temp!

[Ninong]

Originally posted by scubadude

I know you probably have the fans blowing out of the canopy, thus sucking air out of the canopy? But my question is isnt that in essence blowing air onto the bulbs?

Scubadude,

Let me offer some input on this question. What you are trying to avoid is drasticaly lowering the operating temperature of the double-ended HQI lamp, since that would have a negative effect on its "color" and its operating life. You still need to get rid of hot air in the canopy, but you want to avoid having a fan right next to the HQI double-ended lamp blowing directly on the lamp. For example, Larry Maras ran into a problem in setting up his 135-gal Oceanic tank in that his middle metal halide lamp (not HQI) was directly over the center glass brace. He measured the temperature on the glass brace and concluded that it was too high. He could have raised his lights higher, something he really did not want to do, or he could have installed another fan to blow directly on the middle metal halide lamp. He decided to install a fan to blow directly on the lamp. That is the sort of situation you would want to avoid if you are using double-ended HQI lamps.

In browsing some of the Asian and European sites, I have seen a few setups where the hobbyist actually did a DIY double-ended HQI canopy--this is rare because most use ready-made fixtures over open top tanks. Anyway, on those sites the hobbyists cautioned that they had deliberately arranged the fans so that they would not be blowing directly at the double-ended HQI lamps.

Ninong

[Ltspd]

Scuba, the holes in the ends are where the fans use to be. I have NO fans on this setup yet. I am watching the temp to see how it does. So far, after all evening last night my tank temp only raised 1.5 degree's, which is great. I may not even use the fan I had planned for above the canopy. I attached a shot of the top so you can see what I am talking about.

The reflector is the spectral aluminum that I bent to that shape. With the bulbs going perpindicular I dont think it makes that much of diffrence.

Yes, that is the bulbs running. Looks terrible in the picture, but as I said I cant take pictures.

[golfish]

Hmmmmmm, Some how I see another debate coming up

I read a few things about 8 months ago on the negatives of using a fan directly on MH bulbs. I talked to a few people and got mixed responses. As you all know I have 2x250 watt HQI's mounted in PFO mini pendants and I have a 400 watt Iwasaki mounted over the cross bar. I have one fan blowing right on (about 6 " away) one of the pendants. I have another fan aimed to blow on the Iwasaki and the cross bar (kind of blowing between them) I have another fan on the other side of the canopy about 6" away from the other pendants suking air out of the tank. I see no difference in the color or brightness between bulbs. I e-mailed Sanjay about the negatives on using fans and told him about my setup. In short, he told me the fans would NOT effect my bulbs in anyway..........Man! I hope this isn't "Luck" again

Mark

[scubadude]

As u know im running 3 of these Double ended bulbs in my tank and the room that my tank is in has my tank...and an 8' table with my little network of computers...this is my office/tank room. and I have to say that this room is warmer by about 5+ degrees than any other room in the house....I DO NOT have any fans blowing on the bulbs....I do have 2 4" RS fans sucking air out of the top of the canopy....there are small vents in the reflector but the majority of the air being sucked out is coming from between the canopy and the reflector....My thoughts are to get a Industrial dryer vent and to vent all this hot air into either the attic or out of the house. And to probably make things more complicated almost directly above the 4" RS fans is my ceiling fan so we have two forces fighting against each other??

Boy mark you got ants in yer pants lately look wat u did to my Temp poll thread!!

[golfish]

Dude,
Hey, I wasn't the one that made a wild unsupported statementSorry about the temp thread. Just standing up for the members and bustin some bio balls

I agree that venting the air outside or to an attic would be the way to go. I thought about putting a box fan in the window and have it suck air out but that might fight the central air. Probably, running some kind of duct from the fans in the canopy to a vent would be the best way to go.

[Ltspd]

Ok, let me chime in some. So far, and that was yesterday with all 3 halides running for the whole day the tank temp climbed from 77 to 79.5 degrees. Pretty good considring I am NOT using any fans. Room temp was about 68-70, which is and will be normal year round. If I can maintain that temp spread I will use no fans at all, and I would love to drop that noise from the living room.

Now here is a intresting twist thats got me bafled. When the mh's went off, I turned on the actinic's. They were Dim, almost not even lit up. I fiddled around with the wires, shook a few connections, unplugged and replugged with no luck (even though I am below 80 deg)

Now this morning I plugged them in to see what happend and they were nice and bright? Does heat effect floro bulbs? These are 40w NO URI super actinic's. I am baffled.
http://reefcentral.com/vbulletin/sho...threadid=43544

[golfish]

Paul,
If you can maintain that room temp you probably wont need fans. If I were just running HQI's my temps would be lower. The 400 wat Iwasaki is very very hot. Just in the last few days the outside temps have been in the low 70's. This has allowed me to keep the room temp below 75. The tank temps don't even reach 82 (82 is perfict temps according to Ron S. Eric B. and Rob T.)

You may have loosened up an end cap on one of your NO bulbs.

Mark

[Ninong]

Originally posted by golfish:

As you all know I have 2x250 watt HQI's mounted in PFO mini pendants and I have a 400 watt Iwasaki mounted over the cross bar. I have one fan blowing right on (about 6 " away) one of the pendants. I have another fan aimed to blow on the Iwasaki and the cross bar (kind of blowing between them) I have another fan on the other side of the canopy about 6" away from the other pendants suking air out of the tank. I see no difference in the color or brightness between bulbs.

Why would you expect to see any difference in the color or brightness? You are NOT blowing air directly on the HQI double-ended lamps because your lamps are completely enclosed in mini-pendant fixtures.

I have never come across any cautions about blowing air directly across any metal halide lamps except double-ended HQI lamps. There are several references in the literature to the effect that there are two things to be aware of when using unenclosed/unshielded HQI double-ended lamps: (1) Risk of exploding glass if the lamp is splashed with water (according to sources I have read, the envelope runs at 3000 degrees Fahrenheit), and (2) Caution that blowing air directly on the exposed lamp will lower its operating temperature and have a negative effect on the color of the lamp and its overall useful life.

Those cautions have also been repeated by some people who have a lot of experience actually running HQI lamps--one of them is the guy in Nashua, NH who owns an LFS and posts to Reefs.org frequently.

I e-mailed Sanjay about the negatives on using fans and told him about my setup. In short, he told me the fans would NOT effect my bulbs in anyway.

That's correct. There is no way that the fans would affect YOUR setup in any way because you are NOT blowing air DIRECTLY on the HQI double-ended lamps. BTW, Sanjay does not use HQI double-ended lamps. He originally used 175w 5500K MH lamps, then he went to 250w 6500K Iwasaki lamps, and now he runs 400w 6500K Iwaski lamps.

Ninong

[golfish]

Ninong,
In a sense your right about the mini pendants.. Have you ever seen one up close, in person?

[Ninong]

Originally posted by golfish
Ninong,
In a sense your right about the mini pendants.. Have you ever seen one up close, in person?

No... and from everything I heard from you about them I don't think I missed much.

That's why I took the easy way out and bought a ready-made German fixture that had HQI double-ended lamps.

Ninong

[golfish]

The reason I asked is because if you had ever seen one up close you would know there vented. With a fan 6" away from the side thats vented, air is blown into the pendants and circulates in and around the inner housing. Without a doubt this cools the bulb but obviously not enough to effect the color or brightness.

I have read several post where people feel that blowing air on a mogul base bulb will change the way it burns. I feel that's not the case at all.....guess that's why I don't belive anything I read and half of what I see......experience is a far better way to go.


Mark

[newreefman1]

NOTHING better than HQI metal Halides. I started with a 12k bulbs and got a 10k which is still quite nice. Although expensive, the lumens output and intensity are SUPERB


I attribute my anemone success to my HQI pendant. Ive had the light almost 2 years..when I first started seeing them.
PS... I live in southern cali. Although my tank is warm 84 deg. constant, I have no fan and have never needed one.

[Ltspd]

What if I sucked air out instead of blowing in? This may help my other problem of the NO bulbs being dim.

The fan (s) would be where the grills are now.

[golfish]

So, I'll try to get back to the point I so poorly tried to make regarding Subadudes question

I know you probably have the fans blowing out of the canopy, thus sucking air out of the canopy? But my question is isnt that in essence blowing air onto the bulbs?

I would compare the air flow in my mini pendant that has the fan blowing in, to, drawing air onto the bulbs from using fans that blow outward on a setup like Pauls.....does that make sense

[thezookeeper]

Paul: How funny that you have experienced the same floro dimming problem. As you know, I run 2-250 watt Iwasaki's diy and 2-40w actinics. I too experience this same intermittant problem. We have redone wiring, changed ballasts, and changed endcaps. All connections are tight. But at times, the actinics come on only dimmly. This is ALWAYS when the MH are NOT on. Once the MH are on, the floros light up correctly. I have to flick the bulbs to make them come on to their full power when MH are not on. Sometimes they are fine, but more often than not, they do the mysterious dimming thing. Let me know if you find out cause.


Joanne

[Ltspd]

Zookeeper,
Your problem is exactly opposit from mine. Mine come on correctly when the mh are off, and havent been on. If the mh's are on, and warmed up they are dim.

I spoke with URI (bulb makers) and I was told that NO bulbs due not have a too hot temp, or within reason. Ash on the other hand said diffrently in the other post. URI suggested that I swap the ballast out, but the one I have is brand new and the correct one to power the bulbs. I have a GE elec ballast that powers bulbs all the way up to f96t12's and the f40t12's like I (we) have. I am still trying to decifer the wiring diagram, it shows tieing all the incoming leads together

Since you have changed everything out, I dont think its my ballast, but I will double check this evening if possible.

I still wonder if pc's or VHO's would be any better? I still have my 03 pc's from the old setup, but wanted to use the more effiecnet NO instead, since I dont really need the extra power.