10k halogen ligth fixture

Laura and Jim will be hosting the May meeting this Saturday the 12th and it will be the usual of food, drinks, raffle and fun.
 
Doors will be open at 6:00 pm for social talk and the meeting will start at 7:00.  Parking gets a little tight and the city says you can't park on 4th but there is a parking lot a block away.   Meeting is usually held in the backyard so feel free to bring your favorite lawn chair, weather permitting of course.

If you need address/directions, contact a club member.

Best if you park at Mini Mall (where the spaghetti establishment use to be)
 
You will get to see his new frag tank set up in the making.
 
Hope to see you there!

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[angelscrx]

I found a 10,500k Lumen 500w light fixture with a halogen bulb.  What do you guys think about this for saltwater use?  It's is for outdoor lighting but I was thinking about using it in a canopy?  What do you guys think?

[Yellotang]

Non-normal wattage bulbs end up being a PITA later on. Try to stick with bulbs that are either 175, 250, 400, or 1000 watt. All the others just are not made for the hobby.

[angelscrx]

Non-normal wattage bulbs end up being a PITA later on. Try to stick with bulbs that are either 175, 250, 400, or 1000 watt. All the others just are not made for the hobby.

Here comes a dumb question (drum roll).........................

Why are they a PITA?  Isn't wattage wattage?  Most big tanks use 400w MH so why not a 500W halo?  I know diddlely about lighting so this is a good time for me to learn thanks Matt.

[Rico]

Angel,

I think the reason Matt consider's the odd bulbs to become a "pain in the ass" PITA, is because they are most likely not MH.  Rather Mercury Vapor, Sodium or some other type of bulb.  These odd bulbs do not usually have the correct color specturm and will create an algae garden in your tank.  If it is a true MH bulb, then it will probably work, you just may have difficulty in finding replacement bulbs later.

Hope this helps
Rick

[BSHANE651]

are talking about an actual halogen bulb right?? halogen is a type of incandescant light, 500 watt incandescant light is nowhere near as bright as pc or mh,
a 10 watt pc =50watts incandescant
take a 25 watt incandescant bulb, set in next to a 20 watt pc , you will see what i mean 500 watt halghen is equal to probable 130 watts pc -even if it is the right color temp the heat genrated by halogen bulbs (youd probably need like 4 or 5 for your new tank, youd never be able to cool it

now i did see some cool threads were people had put a double ended mh bulbs is a halogen fixture by swaping out some components, it turned out some pretty cool pendants

i know i have listed this vendor before, but ck it out there stuff is pretty cheap

http://www.insidesun.com/index.php?action=category&id=14

[angelscrx]

Sounds like sound advice to me thank you all.  I'll stick with the MHs

[angelscrx]

Took the Halogen light back and got my money back.  Thanks for all the sound advice.

[BSHANE651]

ok angel i can across an idea  :idea: , i read you can run a metal halide bulb on a mercury vapor ballast , so with this in mind i went to lowes , found a mercury vapor setup with a mogul socket and reflector for like 30 bucks, i am going to research this some more, but if this is correct, i know you can get mh bulbs at inside sun for 30 bucks or 70.00 for a 400w ushio
maybe if someone has attempted this they will chime in

[angelscrx]

Dude let me know how that turns out.  If it works it might be something worth doing for start up tanks.  Maybe we can do a thread on starting a SW tank on  budget!  Thanks