Pfo De

[soluent]

Please, what are PFO DE lights? Cannot find in list of acronyms. What are pros and cons? Thanks, Judy

 

[livingstone]

PFO is a brand. DE stands for double-ended (as in HQI) metal halide lighting. As to pros and cons--I'll leave that to the experts.

 

[abulgin]

HQI bulbs are meant to run on magnetic ballasts, although the new electronic ballasts will work just fine. The PFO is the standard M80 magnetic ballast and will give you the most output from a HQI bulb. Electronic ballasts are a bit cheaper than the PFO and the loss of output is not that significant, so e-ballasts are a decent choice.

For example, an XM 10,000K DE HQI run on a PFO ballast will produce a PPFD (Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density) of 109, compared to 95 when it's run on the IceCap. The actual temperature output on the IceCap is actually a little more true to the stated temp of the bulb (7,097K compared to 7,026K).

I found a vendor that sells the IceCap 250W electronic ballast for $115, which is the cheapest I have seen it. This is a good ballast. The PFO is $185.

http://www.aquatictech.com/aquarium_lighting.html

 

[abulgin]

sorry--wrong thread.

 

[livingstone]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13052412#post13052412 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by abulgin
sorry--wrong thread.

Oh, by the way, that was a great reply (on this thread on 07/17). Thanks.

 

[jthao]

both DE and SE are good, just depends on your choice. You can play around with different ballast and bulb choices to see which one you like best, just make sure it's all within the same wattage. I have 250w PFO HQI (DE) ballasts running XM20K Single Ended bulbs. Works GREAT!!! I wanna change to Radiums though.

You can't go wrong if you get PFO DE ballasts and pendents. it'll still give you a lot of choices later down the line.

 

[The Saltman]

Pfo is a very good reflector