Ballast Upgrading

[Soulofamind]

Hi again TRT. Another light question from me. So I'm surfing around about Odyssea and MH ballasts. But I'm a bit confused from reading posts at RC regarding Odyssea and MH/Ballasts/Bulbs.

Apparently the best thing to do is change the ballast and bulbs with better stuff (like IceCap)? So if thats all I really have to do, then would buying an ice cap ballast for 175w? (http://www.icecapinc.com/mh%20ballasts.htm) be ok? It says for Moguls but mine is DE.

Haha wow. I am completely at loss when it comes to this. I just want to ensure myself good lighting for my tank. But when it comes to SW equipment I'm lost. Unfortunently I am a college student on a budget trying to find his way in this Saltwater trade. Any advice would do. Thanks again.

[wharyat]

If you are replacing a burned out ballast, I would say go with an icecap or equivalent ballast.

On the Ice Cap page you linked to, the 150W ballast would be what you need.

I see no reason to upgrade the ballast if the original is still working. There may be light output gains along with better efficacy, but it's at the very most around 15%.



Changing the bulbs from stock to a different brand is may be a good idea tho.

Check out this website for bulb performances.

[Loverotties]

Ice cap is the way to go!

[kbl14]

Not to steal your thread but I recently had my magnetic 250 MH ballast decide it did not want to work anymore. Can I just switch to a electronic ballast or do I have to stick with magnetic? If I want to switch to electronic is there anything else I would need to do? Thanks in advance. Oh yeah I think you have to get a ballast that is designed to power DE bulbs....I think.

[wharyat]

Originally Posted by kbl14

Not to steal your thread but I recently had my magnetic 250 MH ballast decide it did not want to work anymore. Can I just switch to a electronic ballast or do I have to stick with magnetic? If I want to switch to electronic is there anything else I would need to do? Thanks in advance. Oh yeah I think you have to get a ballast that is designed to power DE bulbs....I think.

Yep, you can just swap out the dead ballast with an electronic one. A new ballast will come with a simple schematic showing exactly how to hook it up.

I prefer Ice Cap ballasts, especially their latest redesign with the massive aluminum enclosure/heat sink. Ice Cap prides themselves by saying their ballasts will run any bulb DE or SE; so far I have found that to be true.

[kbl14]

Thank you very much

[Soulofamind]

Cool. Thanks a lot for the info. I won't be trading ballasts. But just curious for future reference. I just need to find the site that someone linked which had a 175w 20k DE MH bulb. LOL.

[wharyat]

Most all DE bulbs will be 150W. I have not ever seen a 175W DE in the hobby.

XM is a great brand, so is Iwasaki and Ushio.