Is my ballast my lighting problem?

HID is High Intensity Discharge is the lighting type of the bulb.
HQI is Hydrargyrum Quartz Iodide which describes the chemical make up of the light bulb.

You need HID ballasts. You need the ballast to be wire for the type of bulb you are using. SE or Single Ended these screw into a socket and DE Double Ended that clip into place.

 

Kinda...

Generally, a Double Ended bulb is an HQI bulb, which requires a HQI ballast to run it. Pheonix is one of these.

This is not always the case however. Some bulbs are DE, but can run off of a standard ballast just fine. BlueLife SPS bulbs are one of these.

You just need to research each individual bulb for their specific requirements.

 

well the fixture and the phoenix bulb im using is doubled ended HQI. All the ballast says on the bottom is HID.

 

HQI describes the bulb make up, HID describes the power. HID ballasts will power all MH bulbs we use in the hobby. Some ballasts are better than others.

Aquarium Metal Halide Ballasts, Fish Tank Metal Halide Ballas, MH Ballasts, IceCap, Galaxy, Vertex, Aqua Medic, Lumatek, CoralVue

Here is a link to ballasts. You will notice only one says HQI and that is a marketing ploy that means nothing. That ballast will power SE or DE bulbs equally well as will the other ballasts.

 

so the real issue here is that im using a non-brand name ballast that is lower quality than others?

 

Bingo

 

ARGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Dunno what to do now. Dont got the money for a new ballast. Guess this will have to be put on the back burner.