M57 & Ushio 10,000K bulbs

[GregJ]

I was looking at this site and see that they match their 175W bulb with the M137. Does this mean that I won't be able to use that bulb with my M57 175W ballast?

http://www.ushio.com/files/Aqualite%20SpecSheet%200302.pdf

[Troy F]

You will. The M137 pulse start is just the optimum ballast to run the bulb. Incidentally, the M137 costs about $18 more.

[StirCrazy]

Gerg, I was running a 175 Ushio on a M57 ballast and it did run but I wouldent do it again!, the problem I had was in bulb starting.. the bulb almost never started the fist shot and for the first 3 month it took anywhare from 4 to 40 restarts to stay lit, after the 3 months it got better.. between 2 and 10 restarts normaly 3. This is because of the lack of a starter on a M57 ballast.

Now having said that others have run them on M57's with no problem at all, and when I asked on here very few had seen this problem, but yet when I asked J&L about it there reply was that it is commen for 10000K bulbs to require more that one try to start and that I should just leave it and it will start eventualy, and after a few months it will be fine.

so as Troy said for the extra 18 bucks get the other one if it isn;t to late.

Steve

[Delphinus]

I've gotten two years out these bulbs on M57's. No complaints about longevity.

I've honestly, never in 3+ years of using M57 ballasts, thought, "gee this looks less bright than it ought to be." Seriously .... I find very little difference between my 175's on M57's and my 250 Iwasaki's on M58/H37's.

I know that according to the Iwasaki website the Iwasaki's are "not supposed to run on a combination halide/mercury ballast" and I don't know for sure what they mean by that ... but if they mean don't run them on a ballast that says it is both M58 and H37 then I am running the Iwasaki's on the wrong ballast and maybe that could account for why the 250's seem to be no brighter than the 175's. See CleanAce Specs (http://www.eyelighting.com/mhconversioncleanace.html) for more info. Interestingly enough, the ballasts that EYE Lighting put out appear to be these "combo M58/H37" ballasts (See EYE Lighting Ballasts (http://www.eyelighting.com/ballastmh.html)), so who knows. My brain hurts everytime I start thinking about ballasts these days. :oops:

However, I'm ordering new 175W/10000K bulbs this week and I'm going to take a look at the mountings, because I'm wondering if the bulbs one buys today are not necessarily the same as the ones I bought (I bought them three years ago). We'll see. Maybe something has changed in this time, because I can honestly say I have never had a problem with these bulbs appearing dim, or flickering, or having problems starting. Nada, zip, nope, I've been very happy with their performance. But maybe the new bulbs won't perform the same on these ballasts which means, crap, I'm going to have to buy new ballasts when these bulbs come. :x

[GregJ]

That is a releif. I had asked for the M137 originally, but they didn't carry it, so I decided to go with the M57. Is there a bulb in the 10,000K that would be better suited for my ballast?

[Troy F]

Greg, I'd take the ballast back and get the M137. If you haven't used them yet that is. Albrite can order them with a hang time of 2 weeks. Having the proper ballast may not even improve intensity but it will improve bulb life and that is where the true savings are.

Tony, according to Sanjay's tests, the Iwasaki actually has more intensity with the normal ballast rather than the EYE ballast. I use the EYE ballast and I'll tell you, as far as intensity goes, there's no comparison between the Ushio 10000k 175W and the 250W Iwasaki.

[Delphinus]

I have three 175W 10000K bulbs over two different tanks. The "newest" two are over my ritteri tank, and have >8000 hours burn time so far. The older one has roughly 10000 hours. No issues of bulb life here. They owe me nothing. And yet on startup they still fire like a SOB. Really, I am not making this up.

Very realistically I would expect the intensity of the newer bulbs to be brighter, but if you were to go by any indication in the tank that the bulbs are somehow no longer effective .... well there is no indication. If I was losing livestock, or if livestock was not growing, or if there was presence of pest algaes ..... well .... I don't have any of this? So what do I make of this??? Wrong ballasts, bulbs seriously overused (I would never recommend a replacement schedule like this ... these bulbs were supposed to be replaced last year but for various reasons it never happened) ....

So .... there you have it. What to make of this??? I'd have even better performance with M137's instead of M57's?

[GregJ]

Well the electrican just dropped it off, all suited up and ready to go, I guess i'm stuck with the M57. Oh well, I think I'm going to bring my setup to wendells meeting, so that someone can have a look at it, because I don't know sqwat about this.

Thanks for the help,Greg