Metal Halide Help!

[w glint]

Long story short, I've dabbled in T5 and LED for the past year and I didnt like the results so I bit the bullet and picked up a new MH fixture for my 150g reef. Its 72" long, 3x 250w Metal Halide and 4x 80w T5 Actinic. Came in the mail today, got it all unpacked and pluged it in in the living room and everything looked great. Brought it into the dining room where the tank is, got it all situated, plug it all in and pop - circuit breaker flipped. This being my first MH fixture I figured I did something wrong on the get-go. I understand that the ballasts can pull alot of current on start up, so i tried to stagger the firing of each bulb. First one goes fine, and the second one will trip the breaker, even if I let the first bulb run for a good 20 minuets. The only thing on said breaker Is the one tank. (Side note: I read something about MH bulbs burning out from them coming on and off too much, should I not be trial and error'ing with this, as the bulbs have been turned on and off a few time in the last hour trying to get to the bottom of this issue?) I am no electrician by any means, I have a general understanding of watts, amps, and so on- but not much past that. I should also mention that I live in a small 2 bedroom apartment with a roommate, so yanking wires and changing fuses may not be in the cards (apartment in question is in a new 2 year old building).

Any suggestions? As soothing as the tank is under straight up Actinics, I would like to get the MH running too, considering they cost a pretty penny. (This is an Odyssea Fixture).

 

[rusting]

you may need a new circuit just for your tank and lights

 

[w glint]

What does that all entail? Like I said, I'm not much of an electrician.

 

[rusting]

i'm not either but if you can trace the wires back to the box and split the line and add a new circuit always turn off the power before you mess with it. may be best to call someone in to do it for you, not worth getting hurt!

 

[w glint]

Ill look into that. What about my bulb question? Will my trial and error (lights going off and on a bit) while im getting everything set, will that damage the MH bulbs?

 

[rusting]

It's never good to start and stop them to often

 

[ifirefight]

Yeah,your talking 1050 watts when all is said and done...I know they all do not turn on at once...but you say that you reside in an apartment...Im sure they spread the outlets thin...meaning they wont handle any type of "load" being placed on them,,,Im sorry to say that your only hope is to probably have an electrician installed a dedicated outlet/breaker for the system...

 

[flower]

I had this problem with my Coralife Elite MH...2 x 175w MH / 2 X 96w actinic. (48 inch on my 90g) it tripped the breaker every time when both lamps were fired at once. My cure...I ran a master controller for the lighting on timers...I began the day with only actinic lighting for 2 hours before lights on...I ran one side of the lights for half the day (4 hours), and the other side for the rest of the 4 hour day. I left the actinic on for the full 12 hours, last 2 hours I ran actinic only, and moonlights for the full 12 hours off. The corals were happy, but there was just no way to run all the lights at the same time, I blamed the Coralife unit, since I didn't have the problem with the Hamilton retrofit that I had before it, and running the same 2 x 175w MH / with 2 x 96w actinic.