Mogul vs. double ended HQI?

[AquaNuts]

I have been using 250 double ended bulbs for quite some time. Soon I will be setting up a much larger tank and will be moving to 400w lighting. I see that there is a limited variety of double ended bulbs available. What should I do any suggestions or thoughts? Is one that much more preferred then the other?
Thanks.........

[MNGold15]

I have never used a 400w DE. If I were you I would just do 400w SE. Personally I really like the 20k XM mogul bulb. I was thinking of running a 15k XM also on my frag tank, since I already run a 20k, and I think I would get good color with that combo.

[mattb]

First realize that 250w hqi really is like 360-380w. A 400 hqi is going to burn more than a 400w SE too. You can not go wrong either way, but I prefer Radiums on HQI, they are great looking. I run them on one system. I also like the giesman megachromes 13k for de. I also like the pictures with the reeflux 10k on the coralvue eballast, but have not run them.

You could also consider T5

[morty]

With DE you have to use the dedicated pendant fixtures because you need the UV shield, unless you had a piece of UV glass custom made for a Lumenarc reflector etc. (you probably already know this because you use the 250W DE) So that's another way you're limited with the 400w DE. That said, the 400W DE is still what I am using. I use the Icecap 10K bulb and it's fairly blue, bluer in fact than my 13K 250W Pheonix DE bulb, which I think is weird.

[mattb]

That is interesting...

[Dirk Griffin]

If interested, I have brand new Pfo single pendant fixtures SE and DE in all of the flavors above. 400w reg/hqi, 250w reg/hqi bulbs and ballasts and more:clown:
There are some who really like the 400w DE, but bulb selection is very limited

[maxseeley]

I have never been a huge fan of DE bulbs for a couple of reasons:

1.) They are harder to change then SE bulbs and the sockets for DE bulbs have way more issues then the SE sockets.
2.) Heat
3.) I hate all of the DE fixtures. I don't know why, but there don't seem to be many DE fixtures that have good light distribution. Also, a lot of the time the DE fixtures have the ballasts mounted internally - another thing I hate.
4.) DE technology is not as stable and mature as SE technology. There are more bugs with DE ballasts on average (granted, I don't know if you would call SE ballast technologically advanced, but they are stable).
5.) More bulb options for SE - granted, I don't really use any thing besides XM 20K bulbs.

In addition, I have been told by numerous companies to stay away from 400W DE bulbs. The reason being is that they are not that commonly used, so there are a lot of issues with them and the ballasts that power them I was also told that they don't really perform above and beyond like 250W DE bulbs - hence, if I was going to choose between 250W and 400W DE, I would choose 250's because you get more bang for the buck. I don't know how accurate this information is - I never really researched it, but a couple of different people told me this from different companies.

[morty]

I've heard the same thing about 400W DE, that it doesn't outperform SE the way 250W DE does over SE. Mine (Icecap) has a separate ballast, and I actually like the fact that it needs the UV shield. It feels safer not having the bulb exposed to water, and it's easier to clean just the shield than it is to clean the bulb/reflector.

The bulb I have is a replacement from Icecap for a different 10K that went bad just a few hours into use. The first 10K wasn't as blue as the Pheonix 13K. But the replacement 10K was a couple inches longer than the first bulb (so I had to unmount the fixture to move the sockets :angryfire: ) and like I said it burns bluer than the first one. Still, I don't mind the color. (Although I don't have it over any corals quite yet)

[mattb]

The reason on the 400 de os that they are not true HQI, they are high pressure sodium ballasts with the HQI designation that is nothing more than marketing lies.

I've not had any issues running HQI ballasts, nor bulbs. I've used Hamilton and pfo. IMHO, my only issue with DE is the requirement to have a UV shield. May be Iwasaki will change that...

Depending how deep your tank is 250 may be fine. 250 HQI will be roughly 360w and I wouldn't use any reflector other than lumenarcs.