At ~$40 it was worth the risk of receiving a bunk product from China versus one for $150 made to high standards in Germany. For ~$80 it may not be. It will be interesting to see how they stand up after they are in wider use for a longer period of time. I will be trying them regardless.

yes there will be 100 hours on each bulb give or take a few hours. this is the point where they should be broke in so all inital color shift and such should be complete. Also this should be the point where the bulbs will be at there highest out put for there usefull life.

the 10K's are the last bulbs to be broke in and they will be at 100 hours some time saturday evening.

as for referance bulbs My AB's have about 7000 hours on them and I will get a aprox age of the Radium when it comes over to visit.

Steve

Steve, when you're testing the bulbs do you align the nipple on the inner sleeve to the upright position? One guy at a hydroponics shop told me that they usually burn better in that position rather than having that little nipple down or to one side. I'm not sure if he's pulling my leg or not but I thought I'd ask.

Doug

Doug I've heard that before but someone (now I can't remember who, it may have been Van Down By The River) told me that it was BS... I'm no electrician but I'd be interested in the reasoning behind it.

Well I think that it will be an interesting turn of events!

I purchased some 10k venture bulbs when I bought my system on ebay. I paid roughly $45 USD for the bulbs which came out to about $80 after shipping, exchange, etc. My logic was that since I was laying out so much money to build the system that I had to scrimp somewhere. At the time the Ushio's were around $160 per bulb, so even if the ventures were absolute crap and had to be replaced after 6 months I was still doing just fine.

While I agree that the SA bulbs will need time to be truly compared to the quality of the German bulbs, I believe that the same logic, to a certain extent, holds true. The area of interest that I will be most curious about is if a bulb has a problem, will it take weeks to remedy or days. Hopefully with a distributor nearby it will be the latter!

Best,

Rob

thats bunk, makes no difference at all (I tried it when the article came out and everyone thought it was true. however cooling the bulb will make a slight difference but not much.

Steve

not nessasarly, I noticed a huge increase in color and growth when I went from a 175 to my present set up.. this could be the same thing where if the bulb you scrimp on has 1/2 the PAR out put of the expensive bulb you might never realize the full potential of your corals.

Steve

Thanks Steve of course it's bunk, it took me about 45 minutes to set my mogul so my bulb would let that little nipple sit upright... lol oh well.

Sometimes it's hard to justify the cost of MH bulbs, but, when you see the growth exibited by the corals after changing to a better bulb it's hard to argue the point. Once the reef is stocked the bulbs don't seem so expensive, it's just while you're stocking the reef EVERYTHING is expensive.

Doug