250 watt 20K DE bulbs, not sure which one

jjjimmy

Premium Member
I am soon going to be running a mixture of 10K and 20K 250 watt halides. The problem is that I have no personal experience with any 20K bulb.

What would you guys say is the best all around value without sacrificing quality in a 250 watt 20K bulb.

Also let me say that XM bulbs are out of the question for me because I run on Icecap ballasts and XM DE bulbs are notorious for not firing with these ballasts.

So with that aside what are your recommendations?

Jimmy
 
jjjimmy,

IMHO, XM 250 DE running on IC electronic ballast works...I have it and it never misfire as of yet. I only have it for a week and I spoke with the IC personnel and assured me that "problem" of misfiring would not be an issue. The only draw back with XM bulb 20k is I think its too blue for my taste but I think its just a matter of personal preference. I had Giesseman and Ushio 10k's before that...so from bright lighting to dimmed lighting is a big change for me but I'm getting use to it. The growth of corals might be compensated but I like the colorations...pops out more I think. I'm not looking into growth now since my corals are getting too big and I want to halt their growth for now. So far so good...HTH.
 
Any reason why you're not looking at something in between the two? I just switched over to 14k EVC bulbs from a 10k/actinic setup and am very happy with it. Decent PAR levels and good color, IMO of course.
 
I am running 3 Phoenix 14K's now. I am switching to 6 250 pendants alternating 10K and 20K for more growth from the 10K's and color from the 20K's.

Also by doing this I can get a 3 stage dawn/dusk effect instead of 2 giving me a more gradual rise and decline from minimum to maximum lighting over the whole tank instead of those who run a 400 in the middle and 250's on each end.

The only drawback that I can see in my new scheme is power consumption which is just part of the package as far as I am concerned.

So... back to the original question. Which 20K DE bulb?
 
Jimmy, I've tried 4 different 20K 250w DE bulbs, all on PFO HQI ballast, so comparison won't be the same as with your IC, but here's my opinion:

AB20K - Very Blue, not bright enough for my tastes.
XM20K - Very similar to Phoenix14K, a little , but bulb appears Purple to the eye next to the phoenix
Giesseman20K - Th best combination in my opnion birghter than AB, but less blue, a good bulb. Only very expensive.
XDE- Similar to XM, but less "purple"more blue. pretty bright



Best bet on HQI - Giessemann
Best bet on IC ??????


Sorry if that's not much help


T
 
Very happy with my new AB's. Not too blue (less blue than I had my T5s) and very bright. But I cannot really make a fair comparison, I don't know other bulbs well.
 
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