Metal Halide lighting question.......

[gatorracer]

I have a 6 x 95 watt power compact system right now on my tank and I am happy with it but I think I might have ran across a heck of a deal.

My family owns a small manufacturing company and we just recenty put some high output metal halide shop lights in above a few work stations. The bulbs dont have a wattage on them so I will just give you the story and you can either help me figure it out or give up. The box for the bulb is a Sylvania Metalarc M/MS. It is a little bit smaller than a pop bottle but it is fairly large. The guy who installed them is a good friend of mine and he said the bulbs are about 65 bucks and he can sell me a ballast for about the same. I know this is way cheaper than any of the stuff I have searched for online.

So my general questions are......

Do metal halides get a kelvin rating or is a metal halide bulb a metal halide bulb?

Do you think this will work for my tank if I can get a decent setup for cooling and such?

It cant be this easy can it?

Thanks for your help a please let me know what you think. Heck if it works I would be glad to pass along any info I can when I get a little more going on the building process.

Thanks again.

 

[Anonymous]

>>>Do metal halides get a kelvin rating or is a metal halide bulb a metal halide bulb?
Yes
>>>Do you think this will work for my tank if I can get a decent setup for cooling and such?
Yes but you need to find what wattage the ballast will go up to and the type of ballast ie core and coil, electronic etc., youll also need a hood/pendant (id recommend getting one that can have supplement PC or VHO bulbs)

 

[Anonymous]

atorracer":23l8bhn5" data-source="" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

Do metal halides get a kelvin rating or is a metal halide bulb a metal halide bulb?

those are mercury vapor bulbs, and yes metal halides get kelvin ratings just like everything else, although high kelvin bulbs (ie 10000k +) are no where near what a real blackbody would be, I think the lighting industry just likes to put large numbers on bulbs.

Do you think this will work for my tank if I can get a decent setup for cooling and such?

It cant be this easy can it?

Its probably not that easy. Will it work? Perhaps. I would suggest doing your homework on those bulbs, check out sylvania's website or something and find the color temperature of these bulbs. If they are anything less than 6000k I personally wouldn't use them. You could use something as low as 4100k sure, but it'll 1) make things look ugly yellow and 2) will give you a nice algae growth


Thanks for your help a please let me know what you think. Heck if it works I would be glad to pass along any info I can when I get a little more going on the building process.

Thanks again.[/quote]

 

[Anonymous]

Is this the guy??

http://ecom.mysylvania.com/miniapps/Fil ... HID022.pdf

If it is I do not think you will be happy with it. It is a 4,000K bulb, which means it will be quite yellow. Iwaki bulbs are 6,500k for comparison. It would probably be a good bulb for a fuge. This is just a guess since I saw a couple of articles with it being used to grow pot.

 

[Anonymous]

This is just a guess since I saw a couple of articles with it being used to grow pot.

oh yea? Whats the website again? 8)

 

[Anonymous]

google this and see what you get

Sylvania Metalarc M/MS

 

[ChrisRD]

The guy who installed them is a good friend of mine and he said the bulbs are about 65 bucks and he can sell me a ballast for about the same. I know this is way cheaper than any of the stuff I have searched for online.

Actually, it's pretty easy to find good aquarium halide lamps for those prices. Also, if the ballasts you're talking about are just bare ballasts, it's pretty easy to find those in that price range too, for example, click here.

 

[Anonymous]

This website was my favorite:
Marijuana Grower's Insider's Guide - le Guide le plus complet

LOL....getting my credit card to purchase lights...... :twisted:

 

[gatorracer]

The bulb is the M59 on that link that you gave me. In the shop they give a real intense white it looks almost blue in side the fixture so I was dreaming. It says it is a 360 watt bulb. Does that change the fact that it might be yellow? My buddy deals mostly in Sylvania bulbs can you link me to the page where you got that info and maybe let me know which bulb would be more usefull for my tank.

 

[ChrisRD]

M59 is the ANSI code for a 400 watt probe start ballast. Examples of aquarium lamps that would run on that ballast (except the Radiums):
http://www.hellolights.com/400watt.html