What ballast will light a Pheonix 250 DE

[kevensquint]

Hi, looking for the cheapest ballast online that will light my Phoenix DE
Many digital ballasts say " will work with most bulbs" that is an expensive gamble. Experiences please .

 

[Aquavaj]

I lit a 14k Phoenix 250 de with an electronic Icecap ballast. I'm selling it and a used Phoenix bulb if you're interested.

 

[Bpb]

Phoenix bulbs are rated for an ansi code m80 250 watt pulse start hqi ballast. That will Fire the bulb most reliably, with the highest par, and best most ideal spectrum. They will also work reliably on any electronic ballast, preferebly on the hqi/270 watt setting if available. Running them on an electronic ballast at 250 watts will under drive the bulb lowering the output and making the color more blue in appearance.

 

[cwk84]

Phoenix bulbs are rated for an ansi code m80 250 watt pulse start hqi ballast. That will Fire the bulb most reliably, with the highest par, and best most ideal spectrum. They will also work reliably on any electronic ballast, preferebly on the hqi/270 watt setting if available. Running them on an electronic ballast at 250 watts will under drive the bulb lowering the output and making the color more blue in appearance.

Seeing that I want my tank to be bluer without buy a lot of LED bars and what not, wouldn't using electronic ballasts (non-HQI) be the ideal solution for me? I could underdrive the bulbs even as low as 175W to make them super blue. I have a 75g tank with barely anything in it (most of it died in my old tank due to a flat form infestation that I neglected) so two 250W DE bulbs driven by an m80 HQI ballasts like the ones I have seems al little bit too much. What are your thoughts on this?

 

[alton]

The 175w setting on an electronic ballast is made for 175w SE and 150w DE lamps, not 250w lamps.

 

[cwk84]

Why would giving 250W DE bulbs less power be a problem? I've read an article by someone who showed that even underdriving DE bulbs will put out TONS of par. The visible difference will be that they appear bluer which is what I want. Since I don't need tons of par why should I stick with my ballasts which overdrive my bulbs?

 

[alton]

If you look hard enough Coralvue made a true 250 watt electronic ballast that was dimming, not select-able. You are more than fine to run a 250w DE lamp on an electronic 250w ballast. If you decide to try it on 175w that is your choice, chance, experiment.

 

[cwk84]

I googled that ballast and it led me to the IceCap ballast. I don’t know what you mean by true 250w. The ballast has a 250w setting and on their website it says that it will run most DE and SE bulbs.