Everyone on this post is correct is some way or other. I have tried all of these examples except Power Compacts. What has been left out is what has worked best with which system. So, here are my test/experiment results. I now have 3 complete 175MH setups using (IceCap, Hamilton, PFO ballasts) and 6500, 10K, 12Ksunburst, 20K bulbs. I have 3 complete 250MH PFO ballasts, 1 complete 400WMH Hamilton ballast with 6500, 10K, 20K, 3 complete 660IceCap VHO, 1 complete 430IceCap VHO, and 3 complete 250HQI PFO ballasts, 10K Ushio bulbs with a pendant systems. So, I have tried them all and they all work. One constant has been MH mixed with VHO's. Gees, I never have written down everything I have and man, what a mess. No wonder I am in debt. I know there are allot of reefers out there who swear by the 400WMH systems, but they are just not worth some of the related issues that come with them. Heat, electricity, and the mogule bulbs all have tremendous loss of PAR and CCT. And before anyone tries to tell me or ask me, I bought and tried all of these systems in the last year and a half. I had the 175MH Hamilton but replaced all the bulbs when I started this voyage. The VHO and lower watt MH work GREAT for macro algae's, sponges, LPS, and softies. You can grow SPS in this environment and they will do OK. They just don't color up as well. The 250WMH worked even better, but again, the UV issue and the color shift on mogul lamps leaves much to be desired. You can also grow SPS much better with this setup. The plating SPS did OK here, but really grow best for me under the HQI. By BEST, I mean the fastest growth rate, color intensity, and polyp extension. The HQI with VHO is what I have decided to run. The sparkle is fantastic, the blue is awesome and the CCT/PAR is closest to true ratings. My current experiment is running VHO with LPS, softies, and SPS frag grow out tanks. The polyp extension and growth rate has been phenomenal. I have 3 x 36" VHO on 30 gallon tanks and the lights are only 8 inches from these corals. While there is great growth, they are not as colorful as they are in the HQI or MH systems. One thing that I have noticed with the HQI's is the UV light reaches the bottom of my tank and buttons, mushrooms, and leathers seem to have more off days. They stay closed down more often in this setup. They used to only look this way once a month, now they do it once a week. So, may be to much UV for them. I have been moving them into other tanks. Also, which light to get. USHIO all the wayyyyyyyyyy. Sunburst, ok, Coralife ok, not sure if Blueline are worth mentioning, and the USHIO seem to be the closest visually to me, but don't forget Iwasaki. The photosythetically available radiation" (PAR region; 400 to 700 nm) of the lamp output for a new 6500 Iwasaki is 104 with cct "correlated color temperature" of 7457 and for a new Ushio 10K HQI is PAR 128 and 11,700 cct. Here is the rub on the Iwasaki, they are reduced on PAR to 40 and CCT of 6600 in one year. DAVE MORGAN AND SANJAY JOSHI provided this information on their web page. There is allot more info to review, so follow this link:
http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1999/dec/features/2/default.asp
I do put my tank online with a digital camera so you can see what it looks like now with the 3 x 250HQI, 1 Actinic03 160Watt 1 50/50 160Watt VHO. If there is enough response, I would be happy to leave it online for the next few days/weeks. Only during the day though. My tank is in my living room and it is hard to work around the camera. By the way, has Hamilton fixed the electronic ballast issues where they need to be TUNED to the bulb? If not, you have to send the ballast with bulb to them to tune it. And when you changed bulbs, you had to send it in again. Right, tank without light while this is done. Most people don't have spare light sitting around for this nonsense. Don't forget about water quality. Even the best lighting can only light up what is in your tank. Weather it be cyno or a flourishing SPS tank. I also think it is funny, but this is just my $.02 worth. If I get blasted, as so many people tend to do on this forum, I again will remove my knowledge and $.02 worth for a while. Everything I said can be disputed or argued because these are living creatures and respond differently to every environment. If not, we would not need this forum to exchange knowledge.
