Metal Halide Ballast (1 Viewer)

[Ostentum]

From my experience ask yourself first what color spectrum bulb you want. Then the brand. I myself run radium 20k bulbs which for sps I don't think you can find a better bulb for coloration. The issue with radiums are they can run pretty expensive and its hard to find a ballast to reliably fire them. I have used the whole gambit of ballasts and bulb combos over the year and keep coming back to one particular combo. Galaxy ballast with a radium bulb. Reflectors I use lumenbrite. They significantly increase your par and penetration through the water. Drawback shading if the bulbs are placed too far apart and or too close to the water. I ran two on my 5 ft 110g on the mini style reflectors 12 inches off the water and had noticeable shading in the middle of the tank

 

[mwilliams62]

Will be using a canopy once I get it modified or just rebuild one. I was not going to use a chiller but I might have to because I can't seem to keep the temp regulated. It goes from 77.8 to 82. I forgot to plug one of the heaters in and I kept walking by the tank and could not figure out why temp was so low till I checked the heaters and remembered I had unplugged one while I was rearranging some stuff. I do have a build thread on here you can see the tank on it. Not the best but a work in progress.

 

[emixa]

mary, i also run (2) 250w radium SE mogul bulbs under a lumen elite reflector using a dual galaxy ballast. i have a 90 gallon tank an presently have them about 14-inches above the water. everything looks great and are cloring up great. i would also invest in a controller. i have my heater and fan plugged into it. if it gets too hot, the fan auto turns on and turns off when it reaches the desired temp.

fell free to stop by anytime i am home.