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will a vho bulb fit into a standard hang down "shop light", or do you have to buy a special ballast for vho? dont want to spend more cash than i need to
Well I dont know if a VHO bulb will fit into one of those hanging shoplights, but it would be pretty cheap if you could use that as a vho fixture. As for the ballast yes you will have to purchase a special ballast to run vho's. I know Icecap makes a good ballast that runs vho's and pc's depending of wiring, but just do a search for vho ballasts of kits and you should find one that will suit your needs.
The shop light will not fire those bulbs up. Like Lemon says you need a ballast and Icecap are good ones. I have 2 of them on my 125 and they work well.
If you have a FO set up you can get regular URI bulbs that would work in a shop light and give you nice color in the tank.
I have VHO lamps running on a standard ballast. They fire but only run at 20 watts each instead of 75 watts. You need a VHO ballast for the VHO lamps to operate at "full capacity". If you don't have a VHO ballast don't waste money on VHO bulbs