which ballast for radium 400w

[Anonymous]

any suggestions?

I've got a coil type now, but it wont fire the radiums, sometimes it does sometimes it does not

I'm running a single radium over a 75g, I'm thinking PFO pulse start ballast

I cant think of any good reason to go electronic? do they change bulb life at all?

 

[ChrisRD]

The standard ANSI M59 ballast lacks the ignitor circuitry this lamp requires to fire reliably.

The 400 watt Radium is a bit of an oddball. The closest thing to the correct spec. in US ballasts would be the pulse start ANSI M135. Unfortunately, the Radium is one of the few lamps in the hobby that these ballasts will drive correctly which kinda sucks if you decide to run other lamps in the future.

Running them on electronic ballasts they'll be slightly overdriven, which will probably shorten their life a bit (and also burn them a bit whiter/brighter), but you'll have a lot more lamp choices should you chose to go with something else down the road.

Running them on Son Agros (so called 400 HQI) will result in an even brighter/whiter appearance than electronics, but a noticeably shorter life as well.

HTH

 

[Anonymous]

I've got a galaxy 400w electronic ballast on order, should be here today

I prefer a little bluer light, and these bulbs are so cheap I dont mind replacing them every 6 months, it beats replacing bulbs + actinics, and this tank is softies/lps/monti, no high light sps

 

[ChrisRD]

I've known people to get 6 months out of them on Son Agros, so I would expect you to get better than that on the Galaxys. I think Len runs Radiums on Galaxys now - maybe he will chime in...