Where should I buy my 150W 10K HQI DE MH bulbs?

[Origami]

I'm coming up on my first replacement cycle (6 months) for my halides. I'm thinking of going with Ushio's but suggestions are welcome. Most of all, though, I'd like to know where I can get good value.

[jamal]

why are you changing out your metal halides after 6 months? premiumaquatics or hello lights have good prices on these. what kind of color are you looking for?

[bk_market]

hellolights have great price with freeshipping on all Metal halide lamps :D

[Origami]

Gotta admit, Jamal, that I'm considering changing out because I've read that I should change out MH bulbs after 6 months and my fluorescents after 12 months. My MH's mostly have run 8 hrs per day but I've recently cut it back to more like 6 per day while fighting back a mild cyano outbreak.

 

Color? Crisp white, I guess. I'm running a 90 with 18 inches of water to the sand bed, and 6 inches to the halides. I'm inclined to stay with 10K bulbs for fear that my PAR will suffer if I go higher. My lighting is supplemented with 2x96W Actinic 03's which give me an overall decent look.

 

Thoughts?

Edited February 4, 2008 by Origami2547

[jamal]

Gotta admit, Jamal, that I'm considering changing out because I've read that I should change out MH bulbs after 6 months and my fluorescents after 12 months. My MH's mostly have run 8 hrs per day but I've recently cut it back to more like 6 per day while fighting back a mild cyano outbreak.

 

Color? Crisp white, I guess. I'm running a 90 with 18 inches of water to the sand bed, and 6 inches to the halides. I'm inclined to stay with 10K bulbs for fear that my PAR will suffer if I go higher. My lighting is supplemented with 2x96W Actinic 03's which give me an overall decent look.

 

Thoughts?

 

i ran mine for about 13 months. my reading says that you can get about a year or more depending on how long you run them. i run mine 10 hrs a day so you should be good but if you want to change ushio's have a crisp white but if you desire par than xm 10k's cant be beat. with that depth what are you keeping?

[martin]

I have been runing mine for about two years, going strong.

[Origami]

Jamal, I just started my tank out last September. I've got a number of SPS frags sitting mid to high in the tank. A couple of montipora (green and orange), a pink birdsnest, bali green slimer, an acropora, and a green christmas tree something-or-other frag from Dave Lin (I'm going to have to look that name up again, I guess). Down low, I have some mushrooms and a couple of GSP frags. I also have a couple of anemones that have done very well - a flower anemone which is now a good 7 inches across and a purple condylactis which is at least that large. The flower sits about 3/4 of the way up and the condy is about 1/4 of the way up from the bottom. Both seem to like where they're at as they don't move much (the flower anemone, in fact, has only moved about 2-1/2 inches over the last 5 months or so). Really, though, I'd like to add more SPS if I can and get decent growth.

 

Where can I find more information out on the XM's and the Ushio's? There doesn't seem to be any really recent studies by S. Joshi on 150W halides in the last 3 years or so.

 

Interesting that you run your bulbs for a year plus. Metelsky, in Simplified Reefkeeping, recommends a 6 month cycle saying that while the light looks OK to us, the aged light color shifts month-to-month and should be replaced. Kent-Marine also says, "Replace metal halide bulbs every 6 months or so, and fluorescents every 12 months " on their website at http://www.kentmarine.com/kent-university/reef-lighting.htm. Other people also talk about replacing bulbs at longer intervals (1 year typical but sometimes more). One site even went so far as to say to replace the halides when they began to flicker (that would seem to be pretty far along the age path, you'd think).

 

So, besides telling me a little bit more about XM's, presuming that I wait a few months to replace my bulbs, what are the in's and out's of doing so? What do I have to look out for? Should I back off the photo period or do something else to ease the corals into the new lighting?

Edited February 4, 2008 by Origami2547

[jamal]

some of your questions are easier to field than others. here is some bulb and ballast comparisons:http://www.reeflightinginfo.arvixe.com/ well if you are just changing bulbs than it is pretty straight forward. identify whether your ballast is capable of running pulse start bulbs such as ushio and whether it can run probe start bulbs like xm bulbs. if you have an electronic ballast or an hqi ballast you can run either though if its hqi it will not run at factory specs so it may need to be replaced sooner. yes you should acclimate your corals to knew lighting. you can layer eggcrate over the tank or run shorter photoperiods. also note that there is a burn in period where the bulb color will look different. what do you want to know about xm vs ushio. note that ushios will provide a different par value than xm bulbs. also pst what kind of ballast you have?

[Origami]

My lighting is provided by a Coralife Aqualight Pro which an integrated system (2x 150W HQI MH, 2x 96W Actinic 03, plus 4x lunar LED) that uses HQI ballasts. Insofar as what is it I'd like to know about a comparison between Ushio and XM bulbs, it's this. You have to realize that this is my first time looking into bulbs, so I don't really have much of an idea of what's important and what's not - you know, sifting the wheat from the chaff as it were. The aesthetics of color are important and (what appears to me as) the crisp white of the stock bulbs that were provided by coralife in the fixture, when supplemented by the actinics, seemed pretty nice. PAR value seems to be an important figure of merit as well and I'm making the leap that PAR value is tied to coral growth when all other parameters are held constant. (I'll tell you though, I thought my coral growth rates were kind of slow until just lately when things seem to be almost visibly taking off from day to day, which by the way, is kinda cool to watch.) I'm sure that I'm oversimplifying. Another member here has a some extra Ushios. She's also running some XM bulbs and has offered to let me have a look at her setup to compare the bulbs and I'll probably take her up on it. (Just another example of the generous nature of this WAMAS community!) So, if you could maybe tell me what you think is important to you when evaluating MH replacements, I'm sure that I would benefit. So far, and I hope it's to my benefit, I've clearly decided to stay away from the $8 ebay specials because I haven't a clue of what I'd be getting and I have way too much invested in this hobby to compromise on something as important to the health of the ecosystem as lighting.

[OUsnakebyte]

I run 150 watt 10K XM's, - purchase from Hellolights - and I change my bulbs out approximately every 10 to 11 months (+/- 1 month). I run the bulbs about 10 hours per day.

 

My indicator coral is the yellow tort that resides next to the big formosa colony on the left side of the tank. I can usually tell it's time to change the bulbs when that coral starts losing color. After about a month or two, the color is right back in full swing.

 

At work, I change all MH bulbs - 250 (Ushio), 400 (Sunmaster) and 1,000 watt (Sunmaster) - every 10-12 months.

 

Cheers

Mike

Edited February 5, 2008 by OUsnakebyte

[jamal]

My lighting is provided by a Coralife Aqualight Pro which an integrated system (2x 150W HQI MH, 2x 96W Actinic 03, plus 4x lunar LED) that uses HQI ballasts. Insofar as what is it I'd like to know about a comparison between Ushio and XM bulbs, it's this. You have to realize that this is my first time looking into bulbs, so I don't really have much of an idea of what's important and what's not - you know, sifting the wheat from the chaff as it were. The aesthetics of color are important and (what appears to me as) the crisp white of the stock bulbs that were provided by coralife in the fixture, when supplemented by the actinics, seemed pretty nice. PAR value seems to be an important figure of merit as well and I'm making the leap that PAR value is tied to coral growth when all other parameters are held constant. (I'll tell you though, I thought my coral growth rates were kind of slow until just lately when things seem to be almost visibly taking off from day to day, which by the way, is kinda cool to watch.) I'm sure that I'm oversimplifying. Another member here has a some extra Ushios. She's also running some XM bulbs and has offered to let me have a look at her setup to compare the bulbs and I'll probably take her up on it. (Just another example of the generous nature of this WAMAS community!) So, if you could maybe tell me what you think is important to you when evaluating MH replacements, I'm sure that I would benefit. So far, and I hope it's to my benefit, I've clearly decided to stay away from the $8 ebay specials because I haven't a clue of what I'd be getting and I have way too much invested in this hobby to compromise on something as important to the health of the ecosystem as lighting.

 

well i am more considerate of color as opposed to growth for several reasons. since you like white it is better for growth than i would say compare the two bulbs and you will likely have your answer. i dont know of any lighting fixtures that dont use electronic ballasts since they are smaller lighter and quiter. the light food that corals use is quantified as par and pur. well i read a recent lighting study that suggested that the bulb takes a nose dive in par pretty quickly but after that it is a very slow decline from 6mths to the year mark where most replace them. this may explain your recent success. never go cheap with lighting. you will pay later. good call.