Question on 400w mogul bulbs

So it's time I change my bulb on my 400w Hamilton light. I was using the 10k hamilton bulb mogul. I was wondering what other people where using and having good luck with. I would like to have a little bit more of a blue halo to the bulb. I don't feel that hamilton has a very good blue to it, when it first kicks on the blue is awesome oncce it warms up get pretty much goes pure white.
I was also talking to Anthony Calfo yesterday, my light was set about 20 inch off the water line, he suggested I move it up to 24 or 25 inch above the water line. Due to the fact I have a smaller tank and have to set things up high due lack of space, for the most part all my sps are up high. So I moved it up yesterday, guess will see what happens.
Any info on any of this would be helpful! Thanks!!

 

I would stay away from the 10k bulbs unless you have some really nice supplemental lighting. (actincs, LED's) Otherwise you will more than likely border the white-light yellow coloration. I am mainly a fan of 20k bulbs. They look great, make your corals colors pop and depending on what type of bulb you use. You may not need any supplemental lighting at all. I have a bunch of used 400w MH bulbs for sale if you are interested. I have 4 different kinds of 20k bulbs and a 14k. Let me know if your interested.

 

I love the look of the XM 20k 400's. Beautiful blue and a lot of pop. You don't need any supplemental blue at all.

 

Radium or Reeflux 12's

 

howdy, while I realize there are subtle diff. in different bulbs you may want to try this link- http://www.lightspectrumstore.com/servlet/StoreFront , the bulbs are very inexpensive and even if you went thru 2 sets per year (I never have) - the cost is very very reasonable, way less then name brand stuff- about 1/3rd the cost. This would also allow you to try a color inexpensively, and see how your tank reacts to the color change.
I would advise you try out 14k bulbs, however, 10k's usually have much better par, and are much more yellowish in color then the higher kelvin bulbs (12k and up) so you might have to acclimate your corals to the new color spectrum, this is a very important factor to consider. If you go with 20k from 10k you will def. see some shrinkage in many corals for some time, however, the true colors of most coral is more truely represented by higher kelvin bulbs.
You might have to run, say a 10k and a 20k or 14k (one of each) at the same time to acclimate your tank. Also, if you go to a higher kelvin bulb, you might have to lower the light closer to the tank to allow for enough PAR.

 

What are you toughts on setting my light 24 above the water line? I set it up there today and it seems really high. I went from around 20 inch to 24 inchs today. I have no problem lighting the whole tank top to bottom, the tank is only 28 inch deep. Any thoughts??

 

+1 XM 20K. Just switched from Coralvue Reeflux 20K and the color was OK, but I've heard from more than one person now that they don't last as long as others. I also had some quality issues with them, but Coralvue was great about standing behind their products.

--AJ

 

Yea AJ, try 3mos. on a 14k that they wont warranty- mind you I am (was) running 2 of these. I went to the cheap bulbs at the above links and have had no troubles. I would venture a guess that like vaccum tubes for home audio, there are only so many companies that can physically make these types of bulbs. I have a single 250 14k with 3 mos on it if ya know any one who wants it- 30 bucks it's theirs.
But back to the orig. question.
I run my quad t-5's (54 watt HO) and twin 400 watt 14k's 8 inches off the top of a 165 gallon 36" deep tank and every thing does very well.
I run my quad t-5's (54 watt HO) and twin 250 watt 14k's 8 inches off the top of my 110 gallon 24" deep tank and every thing does very well.
I run a single viper @150 watts 14k on my 29 gallon, with a single strip T-5 460nm 4 inches off the water surface- my fav. tank too- and where my 7 inch long Maxima clam resides, along with 1000 plus zoa's and numerous other corals.
Two tanks with the same lighting fixtures, just different MH wattages, and a differt set up- but same coloration (Kelvin).
T-5's are: 2 @ 454nm, 1 at 420nm, and 1 @ 12k. This is mostly for coral growth, I use these lights 10 hrs per day, and the MH's for 6 hrs a day- combined- then LED Moon lights at night.
There have been a few times that I have saved an aling coral with 10k lamps, this is due to PAR- (light output at a given depth), higher Kelvin (more blue color) is great for the person viewing the tank but not always what is actually required by the tank critters- this can be hit and miss.
I have found LPS perfer 14- 15k lighting, while softies prefer 10-12k lighting, and SPS prefer 14-20k. Some fish, but not all, don't really care about lighting, all be it, some react very differently under a given light spectrum above 15k- obviously.
My advice, learn what and where your critters hail from, then give them the light color and PAR value they would have in their natural enviroment, there are many ways to do this, one, which is most popular, is placement of coral (higher or lower in the tank) and the type of fish with concern to your tanks enviroment. Another way is dual spectrum lighting, run say T-5's of different Kelvin, and/or MH's of different Kelvin.
Real quickly:
PAR is a light source's ability to penetrate the water column, as mesured at a given depth. (important because it represents a bulbs abilty to generate a given light spectrum (Kelvin) from a given amount of electrical energy, at a given distance- higher PAR is better). Hi-Power LED and MH excell at this, T-5 is not as powerful, but can be placed close to the water surface, there by making up for PAR due to placement- T-5 is good choice for lesser demanding tanks, and offer many color options, which can be very useful.
Kelvin is the color scale of the light bulb (it is actually the temp. of light as compared to our sun from cool to hot- used as a way to identify color) This can vary widely per manufacturer.
On a scale from 3000 to 20,000 you go from true red to true blue- then attinic, then light becomes ultra violet.
Over all, a 14 to 15k Bulb- any wattage, will usually be a very good over all lighting source.
Hope this helps.

 

BTW, I would like to add one thing concerning fluorescent lighting, one thing many of us forget is that the color spectrum of fluorescent lighting is not really usable from a true kelvin scale perspective, rather, it is estimated (at best), because fluorescents have very limited color band width, (some bulbs perform far better then others) and that they operate at 60hz, (60 electrical cycles per second) this is that flicker you can sometimes see (does this effect corals and fish? It does humans- see migrain headaches in the work place.). However, incandesecent lighting does not suffer from this problem- nor do LED's (when functioning correctly).