[APD] Re: Custom Sealife Britelite

["Syl K" <syl2005 at verizon_net>]

I'm a little confused about this. When I put the lighting together using AH 
supply kit, I recall the wiring was different for 40 w or 55 w lamps. I 
don't remember exactly how the wiring differed, but assume the ballasts are 
pushed a little higher. You can't get 55 w out of the fixture if you wired 
it for 40. I "think" a 55 W bulb would then only produce the equivalent of a 
40W, and likewise, if you tried to push the 40W to run higher (55W if you 
had it wired that way), you'd probably burn it out quickly? I do recall, 
since they are wired in parallel, they had to be equal.

The Custom Sealife is rated and wired to run 65w watt bulbs. You could put a 
55 watt bulb in, but you'd get a tad less lighting out of it. I talked to a 
rep for a while a few years ago about this. He very kindly sent me two 65 w 
bulbs free (back when they were around) because I couldn't find replacement 
65s.

For others not aware when reading the below, AH Supply uses the straight pin 
configuration. Custom Sealife strip is square pin, and the ballasts were 
wired in series.

Trying to decipher the information below, it's important to take into 
account how much lighting you actually get out when you swap bulbs, as well 
as optimum bulb life. These bulbs can be expensive, though I just found some 
pretty cheap ones listed on Ebay.

As an aside, as I was limping through trying to provide lighting in the 
meantime (and I have an Indian Red sword on the dark side of the tank that 
has been at a standstill and doesn't look much like an Indian Red ;-) -- I 
let it go for a few weeks with the lighting burned out. Wasn't sure what I 
was doing with that tank, or the hood. Then I tried throwing different 
strips that I could wedge there, or prop on the outside. I got beautiful 
violet color leaf growth during that time. It's making me think of some 
possibilities besides just throwing on a 65 ballast and fixing the strip, 
though that would be easiest. 130 W gave me a _relatively_ maintenance-free, 
algae free tank. I had settled on plants that could handle the environment. 
Surprised to find that Egeria Najas will grow in the dark very well after 
that strip went. But not much else! ButI like the effect of different 
temperature bulbs over the tank, and tapering off at the end of the lighting 
cycle. Made me think of building a hood, and using several of these 
fixtures, timed to go off independently (maybe 3 different power sources). 
I've never seen that color on the Indian Sword, and thinking the combo of 
the light bulbs might give me a cheap home-made upgrade to a better lighting 
system.

Thanks for the input here.

:-)

Sylvia


> That's some generally good advice since some ballasts can
> handle driving two lamps slightly differently but some
> can't, depending on whther they are driving the bulbs in
> parallel or serial or whether the lamps are driven by
> separate supplies inside a single ballast. I believe the
> 65w bulbs just run with a slightly lower DC resistance than
> the 55w and that's the only significant diff. The diff in
> watt rating is less than the diff in actual watt output for
> a given bulb when used with diff ballasts.
>
> Square-array pins vs straight-row pins is a diff matter.
> The startting requirements are diff and the ballasting
> requiremetns are diff so diff ballasts are needed (or if
> the ballasts allow for wiring in diff ways, diff wireing
> schema are required.
>
> Get real, get plants,
> Scott H.
> --- "Richard J. Sexton" <richard at aquaria_net> wrote:
>
> > At 04:28 AM 8/2/2005 -0700, you wrote:
> > >If the pins array is the same, you can use a 65w on a
> > 55w
> > >ballast without any problems.
> >
> > Yup. But you can't mix them if it's a twin tube fixture.
> > Both
> > tubes must be the same wattage.

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