Quote:
Originally posted by StirCrazy:
I was looking into ballast prices.. not much more than a normal MH ballast at all.. (unless you buy them from a fish place)
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WHAT?!</font>
Either you are getting an ASTOUNDING deal on the HQI ballasts (in which case, I want the telephone number and address of the supplier, please!), or you are getting screwed on the regular MH ballasts.
The going rate for M57, M58, M59, etc. ballasts (at least here in Calgary) is $50-$75. For DE/HQI ballasts (I forget the ANSI tags BTW, if someone knows it can they post it?), I was looking at minimum $150 per ballast for 150W, and well over $200 for 250W. You can MO the DE/HQI ballasts for about $100 USD. I ended up buying a 150W electronic ballast supposedly capable of DE/HQI from Premium Aquatics for that price, and that what the best deal I could get at the time. And that does not include the bulb or the fixture which run about $100 USD for each. (I am going to try the 500W halgon floodlight trick for the fixture, but for now the ballast is just sitting on a shelf until I can get some more time to play around with things.)
Whereas mogul base, for my 75g I have 2x250W Iwasaki: I paid $85 for the two ballasts (one was $25 the other $50), the sockets and misc wiring etc. about $20, and the bulbs just under $100 each.
So by my score that's about $300 and I'm done. Whereas for HQI I'm about at maybe $200, maybe $300 for ONE light.
Don't get me wrong I really like the look of the DE/HQI's. I want to go that way myself some day. But to say that there not much more $$$ .... I just don't see how that can be. They're way more.