Looking to replace ballast? HELP!

[yannicksjh]

O.K here is the story. I'm running two 250watt MH. My set up came with two hamilton magnetic ballast with hamilton SE 20K bulbs. I also recently bough a pair of 10K XM's but they are just too yellow for my taste, espacialy coming from a 20K. I don't care if i have to buy new bulbs again since i will just sell these ones. I want to stick with the SE bulbs because my system also came with two of the big lumenarc III reflectors which i love and are nicely mounted in my canopy already so i do not want to change that. The main reason for wanting to change ballast is the cost of running them and more limited to bulb selection and quality ratings. What would be a good electronic ballast to run SE mogul based bulbs? Is there a big difference in running cost? Also are HQI ballast just for DE bulbs? Would rather get two seperate ballast instead of a dual ballast in case something happens to it i just have to replace one. How are the PFO's, Coralvues, Ice caps in comparisson or any other suggestions. Thanks !

[albert_dao]

Electronic ballast will run any bulb, not just DE.

Personally, I prefer to run two seperate ballasts for the very reason that you outlined, but many have had luck with dual ballasts. You might also want to note that should you decide to sell them, your market for single ballasts is always going to be larger.

I'd check with J&L if you want some good electronic ballasts.

[marie]

Hqi ballasts will work with mogul based bulbs especially the european ones. I'm just in the process of changing over my lighting to lumenmax reflectors, mogul based bulbs and hqi ballasts

Here is a link to sanjays website for bulb/ballast comparisons

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/lighting

[fkshiu]

You'll use less electricity with an electronic ballast, but you'll also get less light output comparatively.

As Marie said, most SE bulbs can be run on an HQI ballast, but you will use more electricity, but (surprise, surprise) get more light output.

Magnetic ballasts are in the middle.

Sanjay's website is an extremely useful tool to compare various bulb/ballast combos. The most important columns are PPFD (aka PAR) for useable light output, CCT for colour rendering, and watts for power usage.

[albert_dao]

http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/store_pages/product-info.php?product_ID=vt-b0250e

[yannicksjh]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions guys. I've been looking around all day and found that many people are getting great results and color using, two 250watt coralvue electronic ballast (decently priced) with 12k reeflux bulbs (have to buy)under the lumanarc III reflectors that i already have. Would that be good?