Halide versus VHO

D

dp1416

Okay, i picked up 3 250 watt halide pendants for my tank. My tank is a 200 and it is 7 ft long. I think these should be fine as i will use my icecap to drive two 6 foot VHOs as well. My question is this. Why is it that the halides do not seem to put off as much light as my vhos? I have 4 4ft VHOs and an icecap ballast that i use on my 120 and it seems 10 times brighter with half the watts? Any help will be greatly appreciated. I can only assume that it is simply a differnt light source and i am so used to seeing my VHOs that it will take a while to get use to the "spotlight" effect that the Halides put off. I will say this.....man it sure is purdy seeing all of the ripples in the water. If i am running close to 1000 watts, is it easy to say that if i wanted to try hard corals...i could? I am estimating about 5w per gallon.
 
Two questions on your halides - What kind of reflector? (When you say pendent, is this the old kind with the bulb pointed straight down, or are the bulbs mounted horizontally?) And what brand/color rating are the bulbs in the metal halide system? I high kelvin rated (or low quality) metal halide bulb can seem very dim indeed to our eyes...

Also, were the bulbs new, or were they used?
 
the pendants are the enclosed type that the bulb runs horizontal, not up and down. the bulbs are supposed to be about 5-6 months old but i am not sure either way. I turned off the actintic and the lights still look a little blue, my suspision is that they are 14k or 20k because they sure do seem blue. I guess i will see if anyone has a used 10k to try it next to the ones i have and go from there.
 
@death2oatmeal wrote:
if there that blue it sounds to me there 20k. said:
You can't really make that blanket statement, same kelvin bulbs by different manufacturer's do not burn with the same coloration.....ballast choice also influence's output as well. The Sanjay writeup on RC pretty much proves that it's not as simple as blue or white.

Cheers!
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