Hqi ballast with single ended bulbs?????

[Troylee]

Anyone Running a hqi m80 ballast with single "mogul base" bulbs???
I just bought a used a one and fired it up today to replace my m58 ballast and took some par numbers extra with xm10ks and xm20ks... Anywho I got home from a outing and only one bulb was lit, I had to turn it off and let it cool down before both would fire back up... Is it normal for them to run extremely hot like that??? Or is it from my bulbs??? I'm new to the hqi ballast.... Lol

 

[mpoletti]

Some SE bulbs are made to run off of HQI ballasts like Radiums and aquaconnects just to name my favorites

 

[Troylee]

That's the reason for me getting this ballast... Radiums..
I was very limited with my bulbs running the m58s...
Do they normally get very hot?? The ballast that is??? I mean the case would litterlally burn ya if you left your hand on it..

 

[TJ15]

It will overdrive a probe start metal halide bulb such as an XM SE bulb. It will give you higher PAR numbers but also will reduce the life of a probe start bulb quite a bit.

 

[mpoletti]

They aren't cool to the touch. I keep mine above my canopy so I don't really remember as its been a couple years since I've touched them. I'm sure someone will chime in, if not, I'll check tomorrow for you

 

[Troylee]

I read most of that on the net, but what concerns me is the extreme heat the ballast puts off it's a dual 250w pfo ballast... I'm thinking about modding the ballast box and installing fans like I did with my m58s they barely got over room temp with a fan blowing in and one blowing out...

 

[Troylee]

Thanks mark, appreciate it..

 

[Acrokeeper3729]

The PFO ones do get hot as hell. The bluewave 7 I have on the other hand is cool to the touch. Very nice improvement over the PFO. I have a PFO 400w hqi in the center of my tank with a Radium, and a dual 250 one with Radiums on each side. I love the combo of hqi and radiums but I would have gone with all bluewave 7 ballasts since they run so much cooler.

 

[650-IS350]

Radiums heard a lot of good things about em'

 

[TJ15]

Radiums on a 250 watt HQI ballast is the way to go.

Way better performance and PAR ratings from Radiums on an M80 HQI ballast versus that on an electronic MH ballast.

 

[Troylee]

I keep hearing that... That's why I'm here lol... My xms have really great par on both the m58 and the m80 ballast.. My 10ks put out 1800 par 6" from the bulb, this is before the water line 1" down in the water is 800ish it bounced around since I left the ph's on, 12" down I was at 500 and on the sandbed of the shallows side which is 24" deep I am getting 330 on the 36" deep side it was around 120.... The 20k bulbs weren't even close to half of each number listed, they were 800. Rite under the bulb before hitting water and less than a hundred on the sandbed... Lol

 

[Acrokeeper3729]

Yeah, XM 10k's are par beasts but I cant take the yellow look they have. The radiums on hqi give me the best light color and I get good growth and color from the corals as well. I swap them out at about 7 to 8 months

 

[Troylee]

Good to know.. Thanks nick I was wandering the bulb life expectancy on those ballast..

 

[Troylee]

So I put a small fan blowing in one side of the ballast box in the louver holes and all is well, the ballast barely got warm and both bulbs burned all day and looked good!!! I'm really diggin the hqi ballast... I'm all about energy efficancy but but I'm glad I made the switch here.... My pumps etc will make up the difference..