Odyssea 48" 760W Metal Halide System

Question for you guys... I have a Odyssea 48" 760W Metal Halide System which was givin' to me... Its the one with the 5 power cables and I guess the electronic ballasts... Not really sure how to tell if there "electronic" or not.. They have a circuit board in them. Anyway.. My question... Replacing the ballasts... I see here a fair amount people who have gone to icecap and seem to be happy which I will do if its worth it... The ballasts that came with the light both work fine so is it really worth me buying the icecap ballasts... Are they going "wow" me basically is what I'm trying to figure out. Thank you for you time and response!

Jason

 

I wouldn't change them out if they are working fine, I would look into changing out your bulbs. Do you know how old the bulbs are. I have this same fixture and changed out bulbs after 6 months and couldn't be happier.

 

i have the same one also and its brand new never used. but there are threads on this light on reefcentral. hear's what they say about our fixture. replacing the ballast with the icecaps 250w is a major improvment in the lighting. the light is more intense brighter even with the cheap bulbs from oddyesea. the amount of brightness increased alot. with the stock ballast some people had problems with other brands of bulbs not firing/lighting or there out put was not good ,Phoenix,hamalton ,reeflux.

also you might want to get a watt meter to check to see if you ballast is pulling enough voltage. sometimes they dont pull enough less tha 250.
i havent used mine yet because i havent had the time to set up my 72bow. but i will be buying the icecap 250w ballast for it and sell my other ones on ebay. heres a link to one of the reviews on rc
Odyssea Metal Halide Review - Reef Central Online Community
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1125710

or just google odyssea 760w and see what you get

 

what bulbs did you use?

 

I to want to change out my bulbs. The odyssea halides emit a greenish tint to the water and it really dampens the color of your corals. I have the 1072W MH system. I plan to change out the halides to phoenix 14K's and the actinics to UVLs.
If you check the wattage that the odyssea ballasts put out, it is usually around 100-200watts instead of the labeled 250watts. If you get the icecap ballasts, you'd see a significant increase in light intensity. So a full system mod is needed to get the most out of the fixture but it's quite costly.
IMO, just replace the bulbs for now. You'll be happy you did.

 

I've basically heard the same thing. I believe someone here has actually done a side by side comparison of the old ballasts and new ballasts and there was a tremendous difference. Your ballasts may be electronic, but I would bet they are magnetic. IMO, it would totally be worth it. If you change the bulbs and ballasts, you will have a really, high end equivalent fixture for about half the cost.

 

I just wanna know who is giving away light fixtures like that. I want one too!

 

Thanks

I just wanted to thank all of you for your help... I think I'll just spend the money and get the icecaps. All the bulbs are original as far as I know so I will be replacing them as well when I put in on my tank. As for the one person that asked who gives things away like that... I have a friend that works at a topical fish store and people come in all the time selling fish at the last minute because there moving to another state or country but that place doesn't buy hardware so he gets alot of hardware for free thus I get alot of hook-ups. Thanks again guys for your time and help!

Jason

 

Hi Jay, welcome to 3Reef!
next time your buddy gets a deal like that shoot me a PM and we'll see if we can all make out a bit on the deal.
I'm on the lookout for 2 fixtures like yours, one a 48" and another at 72"

I'm a bit cash strapped at the moment since i've been unemployed since January, but the new job starts June 1st

 

I am using the 14k Phoenix DE. Very happy