cheap lighting

[reeferhead]

You guys really ought to check this link out. These people are using cheap electronic ballasts from Home Depot to overdrive normal output flourescents to 2x's their wattage. In otherwords they are taking a 48" 40 watt bulb and putting out 80 watts! This can also be done with 24" 20watt bulbs OD'ing them to 40 watts, and so on for 18" bulbs. I will post two links. The first is the original discussion about overdriving mostly 48" bulbs. The other is about overdriving 18" bulbs, more realistic in a nano setting. But to understand how to overdrive the 18" bulbs you need to read the original discussion first.

 

I personally haven't tried it yet but will very soon.

 

 

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthre...ighlight=gallon

 

http://www.plantedtank.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=208

[Samc]

Actually, thats anywhere from 2-4x (after reading the threads)-it all depends on heat. My question is, has anyone done this and succesfully kept sps and clams under it on a smaller tank (less than 30 gal.)? I'm THINKING about it for my 20L-2 over driven 24" no's to 4x their normal output (for a total of 160watts). But only if it works for sps/clams and bulb life is in the 6 month range-otherwise I will have to go with my 250 watt mh plans (I am still kind of reluctant to shell out $250 for a light...)

 

Sam

[reeferhead]

Whether anyone has done it or not, it may be worth a try for the low cost. I have been looking for ballasts and have seen them at Lowe's and Home Depot both for $27.95 a piece. They say that if you put a fan on the bulbs to keep them cooler, that they may last up to a year being overdriven the whole time. Of course these articles were written with a planted freshwater tank in mind, and the majority of freshwater plants don't rewuire the light of sps and clams, so, maybe we can make it work for our nano-reefs.

[Rikko]

Purportedly you get 1.7x the light output on a normal bulb that is being overdriven by 2x, and 2.4x light output if you drive it 4x, plus wear and tear on the bulbs.

 

I played around with it a bit when I got my workhorse (you *need* an electronic ballast for this, btw) and wasn't impressed. With T5 lighting overdriving is absolutely pointless - the difference is marginal. I also tried it with my old T12 tubes and noticed a difference, but not really that much. Human perception notwithstanding, I think the 1.7x number is a bit of a stretch.

 

Still, if space for bulbs is the primary limiting factor and you need a bit more light (and better reflectors isn't the answer), it might be worth pursuing. Personally, I'd sooner add more NO bulbs and not have to deal with the heat issues.

 

Sam - here's a good article on overdriving:

http://www.geocities.com/teeley2/overdrv1.html

 

So bear in mind that if you overdrive a pair of 20W bulbs 4x, you are consuming 160W of power but in effect only have about 96W (using the reckoning of that article, which I find inflated). The extra energy is all going into heat. Consider what happens when you put 1000W over your tank by using 100W incandescent bulbs - yes you are drawing 1KW of power for the bulbs, but tons of it is heat loss.

 

What I would do is get myself set up to overdrive, but then instead of pushing your standard bulbs so hard, buy a couple of HO or VHO bulbs which are a little more designed for that type of environment. They still get hot (just look at the fans on the Coralife strips!) but I believe the internal resistances are lower resulting in higher light output and less heat output.

[reeferhead]

Rikko, so are you saying that if you take an electronic ballast set up for four bulbs and set it up to overdrive 4x, then you could use that to run VHO bulbs? Because that would be a good(cheaper) way to get into VHO's. But, the reason for the whole concept is the cheaper price of NO bulbs(my opinion anyway).

[Samc]

Ok. Lets see. Per that article and a thread on reefcentral.com (btw,thats called "Cheap Icecap-no,its not what you think...."), it seems that for an sps tank, thats a 48" one btw, they are running 4 48" T8 lights for a total of 6,500 lumens per bulb and 26,000 total. Thats OD 4 times btw (one 4 bulb ballast to each bulb for four ballasts). Now, you would think because the ballast is designed to run 48" bulbs, it would over power the 18 and 24" bulbs considerably more-WRONG! The ballasts are load sensing and can detect the bulb draw, so you must connect the ballast such that all the wires go to one bulb, tricking it into thinking there is a bigger bulb on the end, then you will prbly get something like a real world 4x over drive, do to heat etc. On a 48" bulb,its like the article said and only a 2x od is achieved. Now here is another fault-lumens DON'T ADD LIKE NORMAL, so 1+1 doesn't =2. That means that even if the bulb is prouducing

[Samc]

Sorry, laptop typing is annoying-anyway, even if the bulb is producing 6,500 lumens (and its prbly more like 4-5,000, max), adding more bulbs doesn't add double the lumens. so adding another bulb you might only get 10,000 lumens total (if they are producing 6,500 lumens a piece). I think it woud work for corals and clams if I hooked up 4 no 24" bulbs, each with a 4 bulb electronic ballast od it, I might have enough light to keep sps and clams over my 20L-but will 4 bulbs fit? Prbly not, since this is the same light as 4 55 watt pc's, which won't fit either. So, there isn't enough space to get the lighting we need from this concept over a nano-their is for planted tanks though! I think I am going with my MH setup I'm planning (unless we could od some vho's-that could be fun....)

Here are the links to the threads btw:

DIY yourself icecap-its not what you think:http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...no&pagenumber=1

OD 18" No:http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...no&pagenumber=1

[Samc]

I've decided for us hard core reef keeper's who have clams and sps, this isn't the best idea. Also, if this thread goes anywhere-lets try and keep it organized! the one on reefcentral isn't and the information is a big jumble!). If you want to keep softies, my reconmendation is go to hd and get an advance (or similar

) 4-32t8 ballast and run two bulbs of of that ballast (like 18 or24"). That should od your bulbs to in the 2x range (maybe more). You don't want to go over that-3x and 4x don't produce any extra light and do produce a ton of extra heat (measurments from reefburnabys w/ a par meter). Also, most people are using uri vho actinics run of the advance ballast in a "4x" configuration-this is actually underdriving the vho's, much like Icecap does (the t8 actinics have various prblms, namly poor color). As far as cost,

I would reconmend going with a vho setup from hellolights and running t12 tubes of of it or the standard vho tubes-4 ballasts from hd will run the same as the electronic ballast from hellolights, plus the retro is only $155 and includes all necessary encaps, a reflector and is prewired! I am either doing this or going with a mh setup-and nothing beats a mh setup so that is prbly where I am going-its only $250 with bulb and an icecap...

 

Sam

[reeferhead]

I would like to say that I am a hard core reefer too and thought this was an interesting subject. Just thought that maybe some one could find it useful. And I do have a clam and it is doing great under a 96 watt power quad. I know a lot of folks are going to give me crap for that. But it is about 2.5" long purple maxima and I feed DT's every 3 days, plus my refugium keeps my water clean as well as my regular water changes. So, in my opinion a hard core reefer is someone who can get their animals to thrive in less than ideal conditions. Not saying that my clam is thriving but it is certainly looking alot better than it did at the store. I've had it about a month now and it is doing well. So, just because I don't have metal halide setup doesn't mean I'm not a hard core reefer, just short on cash. Plus my wife can't justify me spending the money for a MH setup.