Dimmable Metal Halide Ballasts?

:-/Hi guys,

I'm getting all my equipment together, and recently while I was surfing around I came across a Coralvue dimmable electronic metal halide ballast. Has anyone ever used one of these? The ballasts I have right now are magnetic, and I was wondering if switching to electronic ones would run cooler and possibly save some cash on the electric bill. Any thoughts on this are much appreciated--you guys are great!

 

I think you are referring to an old one-of-a-kind if I recall correctly unless this is something new.

Do you have a link?

Electronic will run cooler.

 

Ive never hear of it , but could be wrong, I was about to post a question bout mh also

 

Hi Matt,

Sure, here's the link:Lighting and Aquarium Products | Coral Vue

 

Ahh.. isn't that interesting? Nice find.
That is not what I was referring to. There was was a pendent sold years ago that said it could dim. I posted about it here back then as I was curious about it. Nobody knew anything and it was discontinued.

As for your nice find, it appears that the dimmer is a dial on the ballast itself. It doesn't appear to be controllable automatically. Plus it is only a 35% dimmer feature.
You should inquire and let us know. Ask them about suitable bulbs too if you would.

Back to your question, I have not seen another halide setup that had a dimmer. I always wanted one. That is a selling point of VHO bulbs. You can get a good dimmer on those and they are good bulbs. With halides, most couple them with actinic fluorescent or T5 bulbs and achieve a dimmer effect by having the actinics come on first for a couple hours prior to the halide and the opposite at night. This is achieved with light timers.

 

Well well, look what I found. The times are a changin!

Dimmable HQI Halide Pendants by SFILIGOI lighting. 8)

Aquarium Obsessed - Aquatronica, Custom Aquariums, H&S, Tunze, Fauna Marin, Milwaukee, Prodibio, Shuran, Sfiligoi and More!
http://www.tmc-ltd.co.uk/downloads/product-information/sfiligoi-lighting/sfiligoi-lighting.pdf

 

As I read from some other post what I found was that when u have the dimavle ballast and dial it down to around 75 percent output itwould produce the best par around this was done by using a par meter but I talked to mike from reef specialty he said that the dimmable work best with more power ballast thats my knowledge as I know they work best with the reeflux bulbs

 

Good to know tinnghe - thanks!
I just put ACLS on the 3reef radar.

 

OK, I sent Coralvue an e-mail about their dimmable electronic ballasts, so hopefully they'll get back to me. I'm really curious if I can replace my present magnetic ballasts with the electronic ones, since my light fixture is the Current USA Outer Orbit HQI/T5 fixture, and I asked them if it's possible to do this. That would be interesting. I also asked them what bulbs you would use.

I'll defintely keep you guys posted!

 

Hi guys,

Just got an e-mail back from CoralVue, and they said you can use any kind of metal halide bulbs with their dimmable ballast, but if you use the DE bulbs make sure your cords aren't any longer than 8 feet. And they aren't compatible with any controller; you have to dim them manually. Oh, well. That sure would have been cool. And if I wanted to use them with my existing light fixture I'd have to wire it. Guess I'll stick with what I have for now. Hey-does anyone know if the Sfiligoi ACLS unit can be used with any fixture? If so maybe that's what I can put the upcoming rebate check from Uncle Sam for!!