What bulb should I use ?
- Thread starter jamo130788
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I am a huge fan of Radium bulbs, I'll never use another one. I have the Hamilton Radium fixture
Acrofiend
Valuable Member
20k 250w Hamilton. Similar spectrum to the radiums.
www.reef2reef.com
Radium vs Hamilton 20k spectrum
Hi Dana and others, So my tank was featured on a Hamilton web page which ended up giving me a chance to try out their 20k MH 250w bulbs. I used the spectrometer that Dana had suggested to me, to compare the rightly famous Radium 250w and the Hamilton. Using a hydroponic no-name electronic...
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Reefiness
Well-Known Member
Hqi will pump a bit more juice into it which will cause the bulb to run a bit whiter and brighter
PHXReefguy
Active Member
I don’t recommend running a single ended bulb on an hqi setting. That setting is meant for double ended lamps which require a hood/reflector specific to de lamps. Just use the regular “250w” setting it’s the correct one for single ended bulbs.
RCS82
Well-Known Member
Isn't a Radium bulb HQI? I thought they were like a single ended HQI bulb. But should be run on a magnetic ballast.
It it were me I would ask your bulb dealer if you can get a 14k and a 20k hamilton bulb and send the one back you don't end up using.
rc1626
Active Member
Correct! From what I've read there are quite a few that have run a Radium off of an electronic select-a-watt ballast on the hqi setting without issue. The actual correct ballast would be the m80 magnetic ballast. This would run the bulb to spec.
TexasReefer82
Active Member
The Radium bulb is intended to be run on an M80 ballast which aren't widely available anymore. The HQI setting on these select-a-watt ballast is the closest thing to the M80 although still not perfect. Ultimately, it'll work just fine.
A couple questions: is this metal halide the only lighting that will be used? If so, then the Radium is a great choice as it doesn't need any supplemental/corrective lighting to make it look good.
However, if the plan is to add supplemental T5 or LED's you may want to consider a lower Kelvin rated bulb. Perhaps the Phoenix 14k or even a 10K bulb. Generally speaking the lower kelvin bulbs grow corals faster but don't display colors well (although they do produce coloration perfectly fine - it's just not displayed well without supplemental blue). If I were placing a halide over an SPS growout tank for growing frags for sale I'd use a 6500K Iwasaki.
A couple questions: is this metal halide the only lighting that will be used? If so, then the Radium is a great choice as it doesn't need any supplemental/corrective lighting to make it look good.
However, if the plan is to add supplemental T5 or LED's you may want to consider a lower Kelvin rated bulb. Perhaps the Phoenix 14k or even a 10K bulb. Generally speaking the lower kelvin bulbs grow corals faster but don't display colors well (although they do produce coloration perfectly fine - it's just not displayed well without supplemental blue). If I were placing a halide over an SPS growout tank for growing frags for sale I'd use a 6500K Iwasaki.
250w Radium needs m80 ballast to run right - about 330 watts. You can run it in an electronic ballast at 250w or even 275-275w on "SuperLumens" or "HQI" setting and it will fire and run fine, but the color will be more blue and the output will be less since neither of these are really 330w.
If you want to run at 250w, then get the Hamilton 20k - they look very similar and are made to be run off of 250w electronic ballast.
If you want to run at 250w, then get the Hamilton 20k - they look very similar and are made to be run off of 250w electronic ballast.
