MH bulb watts

[Agnate80700]

The bulbs I got with my lighting system are 250W, the whole system is 1030 watts (I can squeeze out another 120W by putting the crappy old lights i used to have on there... maybe) but 1030/150 is like 6.87 wpg. I had origonally assumed that I could put pretty much any coral in my tank and it'd be happy but Im seeing now that sps like more around 7-10wpg? So I was curious if I could just buy 400W bulbs in, or would that not work?

 

[tecwzrd]

Ballasts won't support more then 250 watts and you would have to swap them out to do so. 250W MH bulbs should support sps if you placed the sps higher up. Do you have 3 250W MH bulbs?

 

[melosu58]

I would think you would be OK with the 250 watt bulbs. That should be enough light intensity.

 

[Agnate80700]

Yeah its 3x250w bulbs, if I can just place them higher on the rocks then thats fine and dandy.

Out of curiosity, when you say ballasts wont support more than 250, do you mean my ballast or ballests in general? And if you meant just all ballasts... what would you use to power 400w bulbs?

 

[tecwzrd]

The ballast that comes with the MH light is only designed to run at that wattage. A 250 Watt bulb must be fired with a 250 Watt ballast and a 400 Watt bulb must be fired with a 400 Watt ballast.

With VHO lights you can mix and match wattage as long as you don't exceed the total wattage of the ballast i.e. 2-4 bulbs at a maximum total bulb wattage of 440 watts.

 

[roka64]

He is saying a ballast rated for 250 will not support a 400W bulb. You would have to replace your current ballasts with ones that would support a 400W bulb (if you wanted a 400W bulb).

 

[Agnate80700]

aaah ok, thats what I figured.