PFO 400W HQI DE Pendants

davelin315 · #1 12/23/2006, 02:00 PM

I'm considering lighting options for my 300 gallon under construction reef. It's an acrylic tank with 3 openings and the height of the tank is 32" with a planned 6-8" sand bed to offset the depth. Filtration and other equipment are already set, the only thing left is the lighting. I already purchased 2 used ballasts and my eventual plan is for 3 400W DE HQI pendants. Any feedback on these lights? I like PFO's pendants and they have some nice options for bulb consideration colors, but are these worth the money yet? The reflectors seem to have change over the past few years but I have yet to see any testing on them. I have e-mailed Sanjay a few times, but I understand how busy he is and have not heard back from him over the past few 6 months. Anyone have experience with these and have any readings and results for the effectiveness? Any feedback is welcome (they will be in a tank room above the tank in-wall and so heat should not become an issue).

hahnmeister · #2 12/23/2006, 03:55 PM

No. They are a lamb in wolves clothing. You know how 250wattDE/HQI bulbs are better than 250watt Mogul bulbs (higher pressure, pulse start, longer life, less shift, more outut, etc...)? Well, all they did (as well as Icecap and CoralVue) is take a low-pressure probe-start bulb and place it in a double-ended socket. There is only one 400wattDE that is a true HQI that I know of, and thats a Radium 5000K. Otherwise, the rest of the 400wattDEs have been plagued with quality control problems and have been extremely short lived. I know someone with the CoralVues who has the bulbs die after every 6-8 months. Look at how they market the bulbs... with electronic ballasts.

IF you want a true 400wattHQI bulb/ballast, there are a few bulbs made to this higher spec, but they arent very common... although their performance is awesome. The 14,000K aquaconnect, 10,000K Aqualine, and BLV/UShio nepturion (non CWA) 10,000K, 14,000K, and 20,000Ks are examples of true 400watt HQI bulbs. Its just that the 400wattDE spec wasnt around when these bulbs were created (or worth considering). Of those bulbs, the aquaconnect 14,000K is a monster with the output higher than most 10,000Ks in its size, and a bright blue look like a radium... but its hard to find, and expensive when you do. I know people that just buy the bulbs in bulk though and ship them direct from Germany.

FWIW, I dont think its worth it though. I think 250wattDE bulbs are higher quality, more available, cheaper, etc... and you can easily light a 3' tall tank with 250wattDEs... no problem. You can easily suppliment 10,000Ks with T5 bulbs as well.

davelin315 · #3 12/23/2006, 11:22 PM

Thanks for the input on the bulbs, do you think it's better to use the HQI ballasts then to power a 400W mogul based bulb through some lumenarcs? That's what the guy I bought the ballasts from was doing before he got out of keeping a reef. I'm trying to optimize my light source so I can host some extremely hard to keep corals when I get set up.

dandy7200 · #4 12/24/2006, 01:27 AM

Hey Dave, check out this thread. Hahn and Paul provided some good insight to the same situation I was in a few months ago.

Jayreefer · #5 12/24/2006, 01:30 AM

Go w? HQI ballast w/ mogal base bulb. best lights I have ever used.

hahnmeister · #6 12/24/2006, 08:03 PM

As long as the Mogul based bulbs are HQI rated, not the probe start ones, the 400wattHQI ballast is a fine ballast.

davelin315 · #7 12/24/2006, 11:40 PM

After reading through Dan's thread and looking at Reefer Madness' site, I'm thinking of going with some sort of lumenarc reflectors along with the Helios 20,000K 400W SE bulbs. They seem to get outstanding color and growth out of them at their facilities so I thought I'd try the same. I have never been a fan of the 12,000K bulbs with all of the blue coloration but it seems as if the general feeling is that the 20,000K 400W bulbs are much closer to the 10,000K bulbs for lower wattages and pump out a whole lot more PAR (if I haven't misread the information I've been looking at).

So, if I go with the 400W SE 20,000K Helios bulbs in a lumenarc reflector (not sure which one yet) using a PFO 400W HQI ballast I should get an incredible amount of light of a high quality that burns at a slightly blue color so doesn't need actinic supplementation, does that sound about right? I will most likely throw on some actinics anyway (or go with some LEDs) for the dusk/dawn simulation, but seems like they're not necessary for the color effects.

dandy7200 · #8 12/25/2006, 02:37 AM

You are on the right track. That was my plan using the pfo hqi with no supps and the helios bulb, pretty much smokes the par of anything out there (that we can get state side). I just ended up going 250 because I couldn't justify that much light on a 20" deep tank

hahnmeister · #9 12/25/2006, 04:13 AM

I dont know about the helios bulb though... I believe its a pulse-start bulb, so running it on a HQI ballast will be a bit like running a car on jet-fuel.

davelin315 · #10 12/25/2006, 03:58 PM

OK, so I'm getting a bit confused... I thought that they were supposed to be run on an HQI ballast which for PFO is actually a sodium vapor ballast (or is it a mercury vapor ballast) rated a bit higher than the 400W...

I'm afraid that my ballast knowledge is very limited, all I know is that certain types won't fire up certain types of bulbs.

dandy7200 · #11 12/25/2006, 05:30 PM

Ultimately, I think it comes down to bulb choice. I would choose a m59 with xm 10k if you are planning on throwing actinics on there anyways. That gives you a pretty substantial amount of light in the tank as well and will burn a little cooler. This option also frees up some $$ for those luminarcs. 400se bulbs are not a good fit for the mini if thats what you were thinking.

Jayreefer · #12 12/25/2006, 10:06 PM

I run the helios 400w 20k and it says HQI right on the box. I believe that it has a higher PAR than radiums. Thr color is the best I have seen out of the 400w 20k.

hahnmeister · #13 12/26/2006, 03:12 AM

I wonder if its a 'true' HQI. Sometimes the term gets loosely applied... like on the Marine Depot site where all halides are listed as HQI... which is not true.

That would be a cool one to find out if its really a HQI bulb though, as many do like the look they have.

davelin315, you are correct. The 400watt HQI ballasts in the US are really not the exact ballasts, but they are a close match. You can get true 400wattHQIs from euro makers though.

Im going to be in Atlanta starting Wed, then in the UK on Friday until I get back Jan 12th, so if you guys have more questions, PM Paul Erik and get him over here. Hes a lighting engineer and knows waaaay more than just about anyone on this board. Much of what I know is due to him pointing me in the right direction... he might even know about the Helios off the top of his head.

redox · #14 12/26/2006, 06:31 AM

I run 400w de's and have for a couple of years. They work fine and as for the sps color . I dont see how you can get better color(well its in a gh and these are just suplimental) I run ice cap 220v 4oow electronic balasts withpfo pendants on movers,they work great. Got the bulbs from custom aquatic