MH startup question

[silencio530]

how long does it take metal halide to reach their full light output?..
i bought a pfc lighting ballast with lights and reflector from my LFS used equipment and i start them up put them ontop of my 90g for about 3 min to see how they look and they look low light should i wait longer?.. i have 4k bulbs on them but then they also gave me 14k to go with them
they are 2x250 how much more should i see on my light bill? compared to my 4x54 watt t5?

 

[silencio530]

i got everything for about 80$ good or bad?

 

[robertmathern]

Change the 4k bulbs to the 14 and you really wont notice to much on the light bill I made the same jump from 4 t-5 to 2X250 mh but the t-5 do seem brighter for some reason. I think its because of the amount of bulbs going all the way across the tank instead of 2 bulbs that dont. But its not the amount of light you have but the par that counts

 

[silencio530]

thanx its good to hear that the lights looked really good at the lfs on their tank and it was bigger than mine it was a 125 mines a 90. what size tank do you have?

 

[flower]

The MH bulbs should fire up in about 2 to 3 minutes; you will hear the ballasts kick in and a dim small light at start up. They should grow brighter and brighter untill fully lit. It will take about a week of use for the full color of the bulb to mature.
They get hot so be very careful not to let water, even a tiny drop touch the bulb...it will burst. I learned this the hard way. I now put top off water in the new auto top of container I rigged up and not directly into the tank.
I don't know about 4K bulbs???...I use a 14K, had 10K at first. The 14K is bluer than 10K so I switched them out.