Do I need to upgrade my electrical?

[westwind77]

So, I upgraded from an older CF lighting fixture to a MH lighting fixture (2 x 250w 10k & 2x96w CF's). It comes with 2 huge external ballasts. My question is, do I need to be careful what I plug these into? I was planning on running 2 of the coralife digital timers (power centers), one for the MH's and a couple power heads, the other for the light fan and CF's lights. Are those going to be ok with the MH setup or do I need something special?
On a side note, I do not want to shock my system with the lighting upgrade, how long should I run the MH's to start with? Should I add an hour a week or every two after that?
Thanks!

 

[scsinet]

Whether or not you need to upgrade your electrical depends entirely on what else you are running.
Generally, a single 15 amp circuit is sufficient to run an entire setup provided you aren't running anything else on that circuit. Unless you had a dedicated outlet run, you probably have other stuff on that circuit. The best thing to do is to simply find the breaker that runs the tank and cut it off, and look at what else in the house also stops working. If you have lots of other things that go out as well, you may need to upgrade.
The only way to know for sure though is to put an ammeter or a killowatt on the tank and figure out how much it draws. Adding up nameplate ratings will give you a ballpark idea, but nameplates usually state that a device requires more than it actually does.