150w bulb in a 175w ballast...?

[Mishap]

I have a Oddyssea 36" fixture, it says it is a 175w bulb however I could only find 150w bulbs in the store. If I put the 150w bulb in the fixture will it fry the capacitor and or ballast?

May be a dumb question, but any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Matt

[nazzy_19]

Even if it works, the life of the bulb will be shorten by a fair amount. I am not sure if it's worth a try.

[MinibowMatt]

150W (aquarium) bulbs are DE. 175W MH is SE. You cannot switch them around. You would probably cause the bulb to overheat and possibly cause it to fail prematurely

[DrBDC]

Depends on the ballast. i.e. ARO electronic ballasts are 150/175. I don't think it works with the magnetic ballasts. I wish it did since I have a 175w mh pendant on a frag tank I'd love to put one of those Iwasaki spot halides into but they only come in 150 watt versions.

[Mishap]

The aquatraders fixture is supposedly a "175w HQI". The fixture itself has a double ended bulb. But to my knowledge there is no such thing as a 175 double ended bulb.

Which makes me believe that it is really a 150w, thus my question.

I got a coralife 150w HQI 14k to replac the "175w HQI" 20k that came with the unit.

[DrBDC]

Like many magnetic ballasts, they probably run the bulb higher than the typical rating. There are many 250 watt ballast that run closer to 350 especially the HQI ballasts. That's probably what they did for advertising as well as making people think that they are the only ones selling the replacement bulbs in that wattage. I bet they have them available! :lol:

[mufret]

Oddyssea does sell replacement 175w HQI bulbs. They are, however, made with the same attention (or lack there of) to detail as their other products. I've opened up one of the ballasts and they are marked as 175w magnetic HQI ballasts. I've also run 150w bulbs using it and I haven't noticed bulbs shifting any faster. Most bulbs are manufactured to take a bit more wattage than rated for and I'd suspect that most better 150 bulbs are made with tolerances that exceed 175 watts.

[DrBDC]

I went to aquatraders website. If you go to the bulbs, then they have some options of 150 or 175, but if you click on the picture, the box that shows up says 150! :lol: