Well, it was that time of year again to replace the bulbs. The system is a 6' Hamilton Technologies hood running 3 175w SE bulbs and two VHO's. I had run Ushio 10k in the past, but last year used Aqualine 10k. Between the two, there seemed to be very little differance in growth of my softy tank.
This time I went with Iwasaki 15k Aqua bulbs, and really like the color output so far. A nice crisp white with a hint of blue. I run the 15k Hamiltons before for about a month and hated them, way to blue and dim on a 175w SE setup, so was a bit set back to try the 15K Iwasaki, but they really are not even close to them Hamiltons! Way better
Here's a picture of the bulbs. They are left to right, the Aqualine, 1 year old, the Ushio, 3 months old, and the Iwasaki, brand new. Notice how the Aqualine doesn't have the center of the bulb all burnt black. Still looks almost new.
Here is the tank shot with the Ushio on the left and the Aqualine on the right. You can see that the ushio has a little more yellow then the aqualine, even though the aqualine is a year old. This was taken with no flash.
This picture is of the Ushio on the left and the new Iwasaki on the right. Still no camera flash used. You can see the difference in the blue the Iwasaki has. I wish I had compared the Aqualine to the Iwasaki, but I didn't, maybe I will later
Next is the full tank shot of all three Iwasali bulbs, no flash...Almost too white for me!
And the last picture showing the two
URI vho Actinic on, still no flash. Over all I think the last picture shows how nice these Iwasakis are. I hope they burn in and hold close to this color.
