Cheap(er) MH Lighting / DIY MH

Has anyone tried making a DIY MH setup like the one talked about at this link:

http://aquarium.union.rpi.edu/articles/DIY_MH.html

It seems pretty straight forward, so I was thinking about getting a 250 watt Mercury Vapor ballast (Gray Bar - Product ID 71A3572-001D), then just picking up a light 250 6500k 6500K Iwasaki

bulb as suggested.

So for like $75-90, I would have a fairly nice MH system.. I was just interested to see if anyone else here has done this yet.

It looks like it could work, Just be sure not to short change anything. Use all the proper wiring and ensure that all is water proof. If anything is faulty you could end up with FIRE and Destruction!

It looks like a great Idea though!! If I could find a lesser wattage ballast I may look into that. Just go for the 10000k bulb. Let me know if you go this route and take pictures.

i saw that site too. There was a loooong thread on reefcentral started by the guy who made that site. Only thing that sounded hard is to get the ballast, you need to have a business account with the company he suggests (graybar i think?), so you have to pretend like you own a company lol. Anyways, go to RC and search for 'cheap metal halide' or something and it should probally come up....

It really isn't that hard to do. the problem is you are limited to the iwaski bulb with that setup. No 10k on that ballast. The iwaski is the only one that runs on an mv ballast.

by the time I was done with getting the wire $12, spiderlight reflector and socket $25 i think and the ballast box $13 and the ballast which was $44 with shipping from graybar. It would have been alot easier close to the same cost to get a kit from hellolights or marine depot and then you would have a ballast that you could run other bulbs with. If you can get the ballast cheap for $26 or what ever the guy paid for it it is a steal but the price went up 10 on them I believe and it doesn't quite make the scrounging worth it.

check out this

http://www.hellolights.com/25methalretk.html

then you would be able to run 10k's and you would have it all for $150.(ithink you still need a ballast box) What I paid after running around and spending way more time than necessary to run only one bulb.

T

Jus break down and buy an MH core and coil set up from home depo. slap it ina vented metal project box wire it up and your in there. you can use a small peice of aluminum to make our horizontal mounting braket too. Just drill two holes in it to match the mogul base socket and then bend it in an "L" shape leaving room for the bulb. drill 2 pilot holes for 2 small wood screws to mount it and your in there.

Thanks for all the feed back! I will probably end up just buying a retro fit. Sounds like it might be a better alternative.. (though a hair more costly).

~V