bulb confusion

[brad1968]

I purchased an existing setup 6 months ago and I want to replace my light bulbs. Can someone help me make sense of this.
From what I can make out, I have an Odyssey Metal Halide 48, with (2) HQI 175w 20k, (2) cf 96w actinic blue.
and what's hqi and cf?
Should I replace and use exactly the same number bulbs, or can I get stronger lighting? I want to get the brightest bulbs possible.
Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[dmjordan]

you want to stay with the same watt bulb but you can change the (k) or kelvin
cf is compact flourescent but i am not sure what hqi stands for.
maybe someone else might have some input for you also so here is a bump.

 

[mandarin w]

I believe the light strip would have a built in ballast, that determines the wattage that the unit can handle, so you can not change it. If the bulb is a 175 you must replace with a 175. or you risk burning your unit up, along with other things.
The bulb is a 20K, That just means the Kalvin rating of the bulb.(How much blues, reds and so forth are in the light) you can change you K rating, 65K is a yellowish light, most people don't care for that, 10K is a whiter light, 14 slightly bluer, and up the the 20K which will have a lot of blue to the light. If you have actinics with this system you really don't need a 20K bulb, try to see if you can replace your HQI (I'm not sure what that stands for either) with a 10K or 12K, and replace the actinic with the same that is on there.
Now when you replace your bulbs, keep in mind that this may effect your corals, so you may want to put your light up higher for a week or so and slowly bring it down to the normal place over the tank. This will give the corals time to adjust to the brightness of the light.