175 Metal Halide survey

[MsReeReee]

For those of u that have 175 watts. Im getting 3 175 on my 125 gallon reef tank with a mixture of corals.........can u tell me what would be the best bulb
to get for this .................Maria

[Casey]

I have a 12 k 175 bulb and it is great can go with or without supplemental actinics oh its a 12k sunburst bulb

[Bonsai]

I also currently have the Hamilton 12K Sunburst bulb & even though I like the color my SPS do not. I have a single 175 on my 55Gal. & it's been weird even after acclimating the SPS to the new light if I put them towards the top their bleaching, some even bleaching midway down? My softies are loving it the 12K on the other hand.

During Dana Riddles presentation we learned that the blue (higher Kelvin ratings) is more for the human eye so things look crisper. The coral SPS actually can do without it & will prosper under 65K lights. Since you have 175W ballasts as I do, you will not be able to find a 65K bulb (Iwasaki). The next best bulb is the 10K (Ushio). Dana emphasixed that the thing we need to keep in mind is to give the SPS as much light as we possibly can (without cooking them by getting water to warm of course)...intensity intensity intensity. The other very important environmental condition you must have in your tank is strong water flow over your SPS corals. His study indicated even with intense light the corals did not grow until there was sufficient water flow over/through the corals.

Sam

P.S. I have ordered a 175 10K Ushio, hopefully it'll be in before the meeting at your house so I can talk to you about it in person.

[Rick O]

Now I'm really kicking myself for missing Dana's speech. Sounds like it was just what I wanted to hear.

Sam when you get the bulbs in I want to drop by. Are you in town this week?

[Bonsai]

Rick,

I got my fingers crossed that I will be. I'll let you know as soon as I get the bulb in.

Reading over threads I came across a post that you had a link in to Sanjay Joshi's site. I had asked Dana about relationship of Ballast (elect. or tar) & their relation to bulb outputs & he had also told me to go out to Sanjay's site for all the scientific research & information to answers my questions.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/.../aquarium.html

I skimmed over over his research documents & I have to say that the Iwasaki 65K keeps coming back as an all around better bulb for it's overal all PAR ratings. Color output can be an issue cause of it's yellow/greener light but I'm looking for what is better for the corals.

Sam

[MsReeReee]

Sam
Well i found a 175 10K Ushio on the web for 49 on ebay so it should be here in about a week .................Now i will just have to wait on Doug ...............and my bulb to come in.........

[MyReef]

Hard to go wrong with the Ushio 10k bulb. I have 3 on my 150 and I love them. Even though they are 250 and 400 watt, the colour is great.

I was glad to hear Dana mention water movement in his speach. I have always thought it was an area of the hobby that most reefers take for granted. Good water motion is as important as lighting. Without one the other is useless IMO.

[pojohnny]

Here's a shot of my tank. On the left side of the picture, you can see how a 10K Blueline is a little dimmer and a bit bluish. On the right side, I was running a 175W 5.5K 'el cheapo' from Pet Warehouse. It seem the hair algea prefers the yellow light. I've since upgraded this bulb to a 10K Aqualine Buscke and prefer it even more than Blueline. It looks brighter and whiter. When it gets time to change out the Blueline, I'll probably go with an Ushio. I know it's baby steps but this way I'm getting to see what these different temp bulbs look like side by side.

HTH,
po

PS:

Here's a closer shot of the left side-


and here's one of the right-

[Emprr_Angl]

This thread makes me even more excited to get my 2 ushio 10k's hooked up! I'm running 4 vho's on an icecap 660. The icecap has served me well for many years but its now time to get into the big league

-Chris

ps...i'm on a posting-roll today!


pss...a TRT smilie roll too!

[Bonsai]

Yes when I returned from the Reef club meeting last night, my wife told me that UPS had delivered my bulb. I was so excited, I turned of my halide to let it cool off, then proceeded to install the new 10K.

I put the fixture back on the tank & turned on the PFO ballast, the halide started to charge up and brighten. Approx. 30 to 50 seconds into this process it went black . I waited 10mins. to see if maybe something else was going on ?!?. I turned the ballast off for 5mins & turned it back on, once again the bulb started to charge up & once again after a few seconds it went black . I pulled the bulb out & looked at it, nothing obvious, but I had noticed prior to putting it in it had a shiney mercury type coating inside the bulb around the base where the glass mated with mogal connector. Just thought that was normal & part of how the bulb was desigened even though 12K did not have any discoloration like that.

Just to make sure my balasat had not gone bad, I put the 12K back in. It fired right up and stayed on as it should.

I'll have to call HelloLights & see what going on.

Anyone else experienced these symptoms with a Halide?

What really makes me mad is now I have to wait a couple more days to get another bulb & I'm hoping the SPSs can hold on a little longer.

Sam

[Dad]

Sam,
don't give up on the bulb yet...
mine did the same thing...I also saw in another thread that this is not uncommon for them to act like that in the beginning...mine eventually fired completely (after a number of tries)...keep trying....
HTH
bob

[Bonsai]

Bob,

hum, I didn't know that. I did a search on the board & got so many hits & have not had chance to go through them all yet.

I tried it 3 times last night with the same results. So from your experieince the bulb will look like it's firing up & then just go black?

Did you just leave it alone or turn the ballast off for a few minuts & back on again, and kept doing this until it fired up?

Once it does fire up successfully is it known to encounter the problem again.

My fear of turning the bulb on & off was reducing the life of the bulb or damaging it in some way.

I'll have to give it a shot & see if it come to life.

Thank you for your feedback!!!!!!

Sam

[Bonsai]

Bob,

Thank you for your help. Once I got home I tried to get the 10K to fire up another 5 times with no luck. Then on the sixth time it fired up and stayed on. I'm going to let it burn for abount an hour then cut it off and see if it kicks on when the timer activates it at 7pm.

Rick 0,

I like the light of the 10K is definitly brighter then the 12K, your slimer has responded favorable to it already in the short period. It's pulps have extended longer then they were under the 12k. It has a slight yellow color than can easily corrected with PC actinics. Let me know what your schedule is this week/weekend if you want to check it out.

Maria,

I think you will also like the 10K bulbs.

Thanks everyone for your help !

Sam

[Rick O]

Hi Sam.

What perfect timing. I was close to your house all day today. I didn't have your number with me though.

I've never heard of any bulb doing what you're experiencing but what do I know. Let us know how it works out.

[MsReeReee]

Sam
Now im excited cant wait till i get my lights..............
also thanks for coming last night i really enjoyed having u all over.