what bulbs???

[macawmagic]

First off...my tank is a 75 gallon tank. I have A LOT of sps in there and i'm having a problem with stuff growing tooooo fast right now. LOL. I know it's not a bad thing, but I can't upgrade and can't get rid of frags fast enough. The pendants are aquamedic 250 watt DE pendants. ballasts are the ones that come with the pendants.

Right now I have xm 10 k's. I LOVE the look with the 10 k's with actinics, but I need a bigger tank for that kind of growth. LOL. I used to run phoenix 14 k's. From what I remember, I used to love those. I'm thinking about switching back to them or maybe even 20 k's. does anybody have any input on this. I still want growth, just not as fast. I want to get maxiumum color.

what bulbs do you think i'd be happiest with?

 

[Tankguy001]

I love the colors off my 20K's. I prefer the color over growth

 

[jimmybling31]

radium 20k.

 

[Frankie]

radium 20k.

Same here. I have them on the CoralVue 250w ballasts in Lumen Brite reflectors and the color is a nice crisp white with a blue cast. I am reading that the galaxy ballasts will show them even better.
First post I know. I will work on a tank thread tomorrow

 

[GSELLERS]

radium +2
running that with lumen max elite pendant and getting par reading of 340 on my sandbed

 

[FaviaFreak]

they do not make 250watt DE Radium bulbs...your best best for color and par would be the Helios 20K bulbs

 

[killingseed2000]

15k xm

 

[oceanparadise1]

i love 10ks the growth is untouchable! i also run ALOT of atinic so i get a awsome look bc i run 300+ watts of atinics and 500 watts of HQIs i get amazing growth and color

 

[msman825]

12k reflux

 

[MikeB]

I am using 12k Rellux Bulbs. The color is not to whie and not to blue. I love these bulbs.

 

[macawmagic]

isn't the 12k reeflux a single ended bulb?

 

[jerryc]

I have the XM 14K, But i will replace them with the
radium 20k. as i seen a Friends tank with them and no comparison.

 

[macawmagic]

but to my knowledge...radiums are only single ended...

i'm looking for a DE bulb here. any opinions on those??? I'm thinking xm 20k and hopefully I like them.

 

[FaviaFreak]

but to my knowledge...radiums are only single ended...

i'm looking for a DE bulb here. any opinions on those??? I'm thinking xm 20k and hopefully I like them.

20K Helios all the way!

if your running it on a HQI Ballast than the ppfd is around 62 where as the XM 20K bulb with the same ballast is only 42 ppfd according to Sanjay's test results

 

[macawmagic]

whats ppfd...par per foot deep??? thats my guess but i'm assuming its wrong. LOL and I don't know what type of ballasts I have. they're just the ones that come with the aquamedic 250 pendants. anybody know what kind of ballasts come in there?

 

[macawmagic]

alright...i'm looking at either the phoenix 14k's helio 20k's or xm 20k's. now I jsut gotta make the final decision. AHHH

 

[FaviaFreak]

whats ppfd...par per foot deep??? thats my guess but i'm assuming its wrong. LOL and I don't know what type of ballasts I have. they're just the ones that come with the aquamedic 250 pendants. anybody know what kind of ballasts come in there?

PPFD stands for Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density, and is the technically correct term when PAR (Photosynthetically Available Radiation) is measured as the number of photons of light falling on a given area in a given amount of time.. The units are micromoles per meter square per second. 1 micro mole is = 6.023X1017. So for example, when you see a value for PPFD=200 it means that there are 200X6.023X1017 photons falling on a 1 meter square area in one second.

in a nutshell, it's the measured value of light intensity available for your corals to use for color and growth

 

[FaviaFreak]

whats ppfd...par per foot deep??? thats my guess but i'm assuming its wrong. LOL and I don't know what type of ballasts I have. they're just the ones that come with the aquamedic 250 pendants. anybody know what kind of ballasts come in there?

I believe it's a magnetic ballast

 

[macawmagic]

LOL. i remember some of that from my high school science class. LOL.

so basically...the helio 20k will put out more par than the the xm 20k.

if I had single ended I would just go with radiums. but to my knowledge they don't make them in DE??? whats the closest thing to that? LOL

 

[FaviaFreak]

LOL. i remember some of that from my high school science class. LOL.

so basically...the helio 20k will put out more par than the the xm 20k.

if I had single ended I would just go with radiums. but to my knowledge they don't make them in DE??? whats the closest thing to that? LOL

yes, the Helios 20K puts out more par than the XM 20K in the 250w DE bulb on a magnetic ballast

if you had SE than 250w Radium's would be the ones to go with