i have a 48" MH with 2x250 Phoenix 14k and 4 65w power compact!
im looking to swap out the PC bulbs. what are good bulbs to use? 420 ? 460?
and what brand? coralife? blue life? UVL

all of your input would be greatly appreciated

thank you

JC

Hello-

I haven't posted here in a while but I saw your question. I used to run a MH/PC fixture that just had a single 150w 14K Phoenix and 2 X 65 PCs in a 30 inch fixture. But, as yours is simply a bigger version I think that what ran would work for you.

When I got my fixture it came with a 10K MH bulb and the PCs were the dual actinics- one side of the bulb a 420 the other side a 460. Then I changed out the 10K MH to the Phoenix 14K and I felt the color balance was too blue so I swapped out the dual actinics for 50/50s (half 10k the other half actinic). To my eyes this gave the tank a more balance look that all actinics and my corals still had good color.

As far as bulb selection- it's hard to find the kind of quantitative numbers for PCs that can be found for T5s in terms of PAR. Most will argue that your PC choice will be more of one for aesthetics rather than putting out a usable amount of energy. While I would agree that the PCs are not efficient compared to T5s but I do think they can throw out a fair amount of usable light even though much of their energy is lost in heat. So all that said I haven't seen where on brand of bulb really stood over another the way an ATI T5 blows away a Current T5 of the same spectrum.

So, I guess it boils down to the fact that the 250w 14K Phoenix is an awesome stand alone bulb and I would treat your fixture like I treated mine- I liked the 50/50 bulbs because they both put out a balanced amount of full spectrum and actinic light that gave my corals "some" usable light when the MHs were off AND when they MHs were on the PCs didn't detract from the color of the tank- they paired very well with the Phoenix bulb. As you have more PCs than I had you could really fine tune this with a mix of dual actinics and 50/50s.

HTH
R

good info!

thank you