Actinic/MH

[kwalls]

Any ideas abou how to or if I should by some type of blue actinic light to run with a MH on my 40Gal Hex. If so what is a good way to go to keep the Halide from melting the light any ideas on mounting the setup its a MH pendant. Thanks

 

[Tomoko Schum]

I would use a 14K or 20K metal halide bulb. It's blue enough that you don't need an actinic bulb. You can get a pendant lamp with a suspention fixture for or you can get a Viper type MH light that mounts on the tank like this or the same one without a built-in fan.

Tomoko

 

[hla]

I use a 20k mh. I tried the 14k but for me it was not blue enough w/o blue actinic suppl. The 20k gives me exactly the blue and white I was looking for. I would try the different mh 14k & 20k yourself before you spend the $ on actinic suppl.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

How things appear under metal halide light depends a lot on the brand of a lamp and the combination with a ballast. 14K Phoenix appear a lot bluer than 15K XDE (a double ended version of XM bulb). However, after a few months of use, I cannot tell the difference between 20K XDE vs. 14K Phoenix.

You should check out a shop with tanks lit with various lights. Philip helped me out a lot when I went to MH lighting when he was still at Fish Tail. He showed me various light bulbs and ballast combinations in use over several different tanks. Some shop like CRA has a few tanks lit with just MH bulbs using 20K or 14K bulbs.

Tomoko