MH bulb choice

[fishtanker]

I need a new 400wt MH bulb and would some opinions on which bulb. I want to stick with 10k's and the only choices i have that my ballast will run are XM's and Coralife.
What are your opinions on these two bulbs? Is one better than the other?
My supplements are 1 96wt PC actinic and 1 96wt PC 50/50
thanks
Brian

 

[golfish]

Brian,
I've never ran either but I'd stau away from stuff with the coralife name on it. They just don't make quality stuff. What about the Ushio and AB bulbs. What kind of ballast are you running?

 

[nas19320]

I run 250w 10K XM's and have had no problems, I also don't really trust Coralife bulbs. My other choice would be Ushio, but the price of the XM's made me decide to give them a try.

 

[fishtanker]

its a hellolights 400mh magnetic probe start mogul socket. on the website it lists the compatible bulbs for 10k are only XM's and coralife.
i'm currently running a german 10k (dont know the brand) that a friend gave to me and it fired right up for the first couple months but now i have to "jiggle" the bulb some to get it fire.
whereas the 6.5k Iwasaki fires with no problem.
why would it say a 20k ushio will work but not a 10k ushio? does it have something to do with the probe start?
thanks
brian

 

[golfish]

Brian,
I don't know why that ballast wouldn't fire the Ushio or AB bulbs. I've never used a probe start ballast but I always kind of thought they were made to run the eruo bulbs.
The guy (James, I think) who runs Hellolights should be able to help you.

 

[fishtanker]

Well i spoke with customer service at Hellolights and they said that the AB bulb will fire with no problems but the Ushio may or may not fire.
So my choices now are XM 10k or AB 10k. Is there much difference between them?

 

[golfish]

Hmm, the AB bulb has been around for a long time and is a proven bulb (German I think) The XM has been around that long but people who use em seem to like em. I find it really strange that they told you your ballast would run the AB but not the Ushio. I've ran the 400 watt Ushio on a E ballast, standard PFO ballast and PFO HQI ballast.

 

[youngsalt]

I had read somewhere a little while back, ( i may be wrong but..)that the older ushios would run on a probe start ballast, however, they have changed something in there build, and the newer batch of bulbs will not work, so they say may or not work, bc there a certain % that you could be buying new design bulb or one from the older design, jsut depending on how long the bulb has been sitting on the shelf/in a warehouse somewhere. I used a ushio on my probestart ballast for a few weeks, and it worked, but it would flash on and off for 5-15 min. before it finally came on. I now use 20k XMs and I really like them alot just my $.02