caferacermike Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 I finally did my fixture conversion today. Oh man it may be to much. I had a newish Oddysea 48" 2x 175w (yeah whatever) 20K HQI and 2x 96w PC fixture that I wanted to change the 20k bulbs in. The fixture was less than 6 months old. Well me being me, things got out of hand as usual. 2 Icecap 250w electronic ballasts. 2 250w 14k Pheonix bulbs. 2 12"x6" reflectors and sockets. about 50 feet of new wire. I first gutted the fixture, was easy and took 20 minutes. I had to trim down the new reflectors from 3" tall to 2 3/4" tall. That was easy as well. I drilled four holes in the reflectors to line up with the previous anchores for the old 6"x6" reflectors (puny) and then installed the new 12"x6" reflectors. Once I had both in place I then adjusted the original moonlight LEDS to fit between the larger reflectors. I had new UV shields cut to fit hte new reflectors so that meant the aluminum center piece needed to be cut down 12". I have a metal cutting circular saw so that took seconds. I then used a unibit to drill a new hole between the remaining 2 Led holes so that I could line the third one back up. After lining up the modified LEDS with the new holes I put the glass and center pieces in place. I realized that I lost my power cords for my fans and my LEDS when replacing the power cords with new ones. This needed a fix. I was always unhappy with the cables exiting the side of the fixture. 20 mintues later and a whole lot more cords I had all my cables installed in the back of the fixture and 2 new power cables for fans and LEDS. I was really happy about having the LEDS having a seperate power source. Original "black box" ballast had one power cord and 2 switches. One switch powered the HQI's and the other worked the LEDS. Crap as you couldn't use a timer. I used a timer but this meant that I never had LEDS at night. Now I do, hells yeah. So how do I get the fans to come one when the halides do? Hmmm.... You twin the 2 ballasts power cable to one cord and splice the fans to the 120v side. Plugging it into the timer makes the fans come on at the same time as the HQI's as they are all fed from the same power source. Ahem, again with the hells yeah!. Everything worked perfectly at first attempt. Life is good. The tank is amazingly bright, maybe to much. This is 700w on a 75g, 500 of it being MH. The new reflectors are awesome. I now only have a 9" space between them and they flood the tank with light. I'm begining to think if I had changed the reflectors I could still have been happy with the 175w bulbs (yeah right they have to be 150's). So of course I'll need lots of donated SPS to test my new setup. I must thank hellolights for super easy and prompt service. Also thanks to anyone who participated in recommending bulbs in another thread I started asking about the bulbs for this project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishypets Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 Post some freaking pics man! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caferacermike Posted September 4, 2006 Author Share Posted September 4, 2006 Ok Clint. So the first shot here is of my fixture containing the old reflector and the new. Old is on the right. This is how I see my tank. This is how my camera sees my tank with corrective flash. The only glare in the last pic are the three bars to the right from my front door. Notice the distinct almost fake dark spot in the middle? So my UV shields were untempered. Somehow the glass shop missed that part. Both of the shields exploded at the same time, about 3 mins after power up. I still had the old 6" shields and the pieces of aluminum I had cut away. So I put them all back in place covering half of each bulb. You can seriously notice it huh? Amazing my fixture ran like that for 6 months and I never noticed until the brighter bulbs. Should have new shields in about 4 days. The tank is sick when both reflectors are fully open. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishypets Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 Looks good Mike! Cut your photoperiod way back and use some screens between your tank and lights until your corals acclimate to that intense light. I would do this over a period of three weeks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caferacermike Posted September 4, 2006 Author Share Posted September 4, 2006 It's suspended over cables so I raised it a bit. Also helps that they are already 12" above the waterline. Also helps that half the bulbs are covered with aluminum until I get the new shields. Dang it. So how are things growing on your end? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishypets Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 Things are starting to touch which means pruning time blob7.gif Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishypets Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 All I can say is get ready for some RTG in your tank Mike! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caferacermike Posted September 4, 2006 Author Share Posted September 4, 2006 Just say when and where. I think your huge ric crawled off to die somewhere. Ok no it didn't but it packed up and moved under a ledge. It still looks great. Cap frags have been doing well. EVERYTHING perked up today. I hadn't really seen to much polyp action until today. Everything is hairy and frilly. This is great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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