Kip...DE vs Mogul

[shoreliner11]

Well kip I'm addressing the thread to you because you helped me with my lighting question a couple of weeks ago. I was planning on getting a 65 gal tank with 2 250watt de hqi 20k's. I am not quite sure where I am going to buy from yet but my lfs can get some pretty good deals but they give me flac for want the de bulbs and saying a hqi ballast is overkill. I know the hqi ballast is a must, but is there an advantage with de vs mogul based bulbs? I tried to do a search but I didn't find a comparison really. Thanks kip.
P.S. Oh, I just ordered my tank, upped it to a 75 cause it was cheaper with 3/8 in acrylic than a 65 would be...not sure why, not complaining though .

 

[dima96]

i have de bulbs over my 125 (250W) and 37 (150W) and love them. unless you are doing at sps tank the de bulb could be considered overkill. 250W de bulb put out about the same amount of light as a 400W mogul. but you need a good pendent. the best i've seen are aquamedic , sunlight supply and giessman.

 

[golfish]

DE's are good bulbs. I used em for about 15 months but dropped em due to the lack of bulb choices. Back then the best bulb you could get was the 10K. The choices are better now, not near what you can get in single end but a lot better then 3-4 years ago.
Make sure you run them on a good size breaker, the PFO 250 watt HQI ballast draws more amps on startup then the PFO 400 watt HQI ballast. Two or thee of these puppy's could overload the normal breaker.

 

[enomadra]

I run PC lighting but have tested some DE an Mogul lights. If I could afford to run MH lights I would use the Mogul, I will say that I saw the DE lights to be bighter, but the Mogul lights produced a really beautiful amout of natural looking shimmer lines in the tank. I know their is a lot more to it than just looks, but I just thought this was very cool looking

 

[shoreliner11]

Thanks for the info all. I will for sure get the 250 de. This tank will be half sps and half lps and maybe a couple softies so I think that it won't hurt to get the 250's. This won't be too much in a tank thats only 20 in high will it? Thanks.