mercury vapor

has anybody tried using mercury vapor? same lighting,same difference way cheaper and easyer to install.!

 

MH vs. Mercury
Vapor Mercury lamps have long life, but are not as energy efficient as metal halide, producing only 35-58 lumens per watt. Their limited blue-green light spectrum has a lower CRI than metal halide.

Metal halide generates light closer to sunlight than any other HID light source.

A standard metal halide puts out 2.71 times the amount of P.A.R. (uE/s)(microeinsteins per second) than a mercury vapor bulb. I have never seen a mercury vapor bulb over the top of an aquarium So, I have no idea what it would look like
But if you have one laying around and would like to set it up and take a picture, I would definitely look at it. ;D ;D
Jim

 

Don't Mercury Vapor lamps also put out a lot more UV radiation? I thought that's why they were used in sterilizer units.

 

The outer bulb serves to absorb short wave UV energy and filter out unnatural light on most all hid lamps. It is also possible to coat the inside of the bulb with phospor to convert some of the uv light to visible light.
Jim

 

learned something new!!!