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Re: Metal Halides In Australia




>How good are they? They're fairly pricey - the best I could find was
>around the $500AUD mark for a 150W double ended version (5200K or
>10000K). How much heat do they produce? Apparently they have a remote
>ballast...

Dunno about that particular brand, but for most of the aquarium MH setups 
(and bulbs) that I've seen, the mogul-based are cheaper than the HQI 
(double-ended). If you have a choice, look for a mogul setup (big light 
bulb base) and see if you save any money with it.

The typical MH lights sold for commercial lighting are around 4000K, which 
is probably lower than you want in your tank. The cheapest "aquarium" MH 
bulbs are usually around 5200-5600K, and cost about 2x the commercial 
bulbs. There is then a rather large price jump to go from the ~5500K to the 
~6700K range. The cheapest I've found for 6700K 175w bulbs is about $55 (US 
prices for me), and I usually see them listed in the $60-80 range. The 
5500K bulbs I can get for about $40-50. I don't think you'd want to use the 
10000K and higher bulbs since those are really intended for reefs and are 
very blue so that you don't need to use supplemental actinic lighting in 
addition to the MH.

I think choosing between a 5500K-range and 6700K-range bulb is a mostly a 
matter of personal preference since there isn't really any growth 
difference between the two.

>Any info / opinions would be welcomed. Perhaps off-post for fear of
>getting APD into another legal battle or being sued by the company :)
>Seems no-one wants anything bad said about their products these days -
>only good. Fair enough if I was the company.. Haha

It doesn't set a good precedent to let companies get away with silencing 
critical comments about their products. It also harms consumers since it 
removes the company's incentive to build a better product.

         -Bill

>Cheers,
>
>Adam Shaw
>Australia

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Waveform Technology
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