Changing PC!

[tenshi]

Alright folks. I need to change my PC out since I've had the same ones for almost a year. I'm using 2 65watt Actnics and 2 65wat 10,000K Daylights which cam with my Caoralife Aqualight. I've always felt that I would like a little more blue tone in there and am thinking about ordering 2 65watt Actinics and 2 65watt 50/50 to get the effect I want, but am not to sure how much that will affect my corals. I have a couple of leathers, star polyps, mushrooms, ricordia, button polyps, gorganions, etc... all low to medium lighted corals. So what do you think? Should I buy the 50/50's or stick with whats been working? Oh yeah, I'm thinking about buying them at Hellolights and they say their 55watt PC will work fine as replacements. Has anyone had any experience with this? Thanks for the help!

 

[Len]

I'd stick with what works, or maybe try sub'bing one daylight with one 50/50. If the pin arrangement is the same, a 55 should work on a 65 ballast, although I'm guessing UL won't approve of it I've seen it done.

 

[Big R]

First off, Coralife 65W lamps and ballasts are really 55W. Just a "scam" they have workin'. You could always try some of the new 13,000K lamps that Arcadia just came out with to replace the 10,000K's. 50/50's and actinics sounds like it would be to much blue.

R

 

[tenshi]

I'd stick with what works, or maybe try sub'bing one daylight with one 50/50.

I have a 75 gallon tank, so there's a Actinic and a 10,000K bulb on each end. If I just replace one of the 10,000K bulbs with a 50/50, I would think one side one be bluer than the other, right?

First off, Coralife 65W lamps and ballasts are really 55W. Just a "scam" they have workin'.

You know I've always thought that too. I wonder if our intuition is correct? Has anyone taken the aqualight apart to look at the ballast? The ballast would have to be labeled correctly for it to be UL approved.

...try some of the new 13,000K lamps that Arcadia just came out with...

Can you provide me with a link where I could get them, I couldn't find them?

You know I'm starting to think I should upgrade to 4 48" VHOs? 2 would be Actinics, 1 would be 10,000K, and 1 would be a 50/50? What do you think about that?

 

[Big R]

I wonder if our intuition is correct? Has anyone taken the aqualight apart to look at the ballast?

No intuition involved. I have tested one of their fixtures here at work.

Can you provide me with a link where I could get them, I couldn't find them?

Not sure; I've only seen an ad for them.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of VHO's. Seems to have been some fires lately w/ the endcaps.

R

 

[baseman]

Tenshi - I have a 75g and I run 4x96 PCs. 1 actinic and 3 10K. I like the looks, and my anemone is happier now than when I ran 2 actinics and 2 10Ks.

 

[tenshi]

No intuition involved. I have tested one of their fixtures here at work.

Cool! How did you test them? I'd like to know how to do that too!

...not a big fan of VHO's. Seems to have been some fires lately...

I hadn't heard that. What seem's to be the problem? There suppose to be waterproof. Are they just getting brittle and fragile after a period of time allowing moisture to build up in the endcap?

 

[Big R]

Cool! How did you test them? I'd like to know how to do that too!

The easiest way is to just put a 55W and 65W lamp into their fixture and use a lux meter to measure the results; which are identical.

What seem's to be the problem?

I'm not sure, but we had one short out here in a PFO fixture. I think it has something to do w/ the contacts inside.

R

 

[tenshi]

Baseman the reason I wanted to change my bulb configuration was because I wanted to get a bluer look but want to make sure not to affect the health of my corals. Since I already had 2 Actinics and 2 10,000K, your setup would actually make it whiter than my current setup, right? But if I upgrade to 2 96watt Actinics, 1 96watt 10,000K, and 1 96watt 50/50 I think I could get the effect I want without causing my corals harm. Hmm. Let's see if I bought this set up at Hellolights as a retro kit it would run me about $398.80 before shipping and I would still need to buy reflectors. If I buy a 4 bulb VHO kit at Hellolights it would run me $256 with a single ballast or $391 with a daul ballast for a dawn/dusk effect like I could get with your setup. I would also get about 56 more watts with the VHOs. Unless Big R can give me some info to lead me away from the VHOs I think I'd rather go with VHO's. Thank's for your info though!

 

[Big R]

Personally, I would not run VHO's in my house. I think there was a pretty long thread on RC recently discussing the endcap problem.

R

 

[Unarce]

...try some of the new 13,000K lamps that Arcadia just came out with...

Can you provide me with a link where I could get them, I couldn't find them?

The Hikari distributor in Hayward, CA is one of the few if not only carrier of Arcadia products in the US. They do on occassion, get orders of the 13K. You'll have to call them at 1-800-621-5619.

 

[jsbradbury]

Big R- do you know the thread where fires were discussed? I couldn't find any. I'm real curious about this cause I was about to order a set of VHO actinics to suppliment my metal halides. If you know where its at, please let me know.

 

[Big R]

It was maybe a month ago. If you do a search, try the word fire. I can't do searcgs there since I am no longer a member there.

R

 

[tenshi]

I went ahead and replaced them with what I already had. 2-65watt Actinic Corallife PC and 2-65watt 10,000K Corallife PC. Mostly because my LFS here in Houston (City Pets) sold them to me for $22 each, which is the price I would've gotten them on the web for. The owner's two son's are actually pretty cool, especially since I've gone in there a couple of times with list of things I want to get from the web and they've matched those prices.

I think I'll probably end up adding another 96watt Actinic PC to give it the little bit more of blue I want.