Tried posting this on Reef Central, checking out the scene over there...nothing so far...I would like to get some advice. 
Hi, I suppose this is my first post here but I am not new to the hobby...about 2.5 years in now.
So I have 400W MH and am trying to dial in the "prefect light" or better yet, a lighting scheme that is aesthetically pleasing to my wife's eyes.
We have two dual PFO standard ballasts and were running Reeflux 10K's in the middle and 12K's on the ends but have moved from that as the 12K's were a little too blue/dark and the 10K's ran towards the pink side of the spectrum on our ballasts.
Yesterday I changed to EVC 10K's and here is where I started to see some strange things:
First, after the initial firing I noticed that two looked white while two looked more yellow. I should state here that I have the lights hooked up so that if only one ballast were on both sides of the tank are lit...I use this for a rolling up/down of the lighting on the tank...like this:
-------------------
|B1| |B2| |B1| |B2|
-------------------
So, one side of the tank was yellow and each light was on a different ballast. I noticed on the side that was yellow the bulb part inside the lamp was not parallel to the tank and the side that was white was. My question here is does it matter how the bulbs are screwed into the ballast? Does the position/angle of the light part in the bulb matter? Is there an orientation on the bulb?
Second, I did change this and noticed that the bulbs did in fact change color. But now I am seeing that the bulbs on one ballast look white and the bulbs on the other ballast look to have a yellow hue. Can ballasts that are supposed to be the same have such an impact on the color? Should I expect to see a balance of the lamp color over a period of burn in?
This is the kind of thing that can drive me crazy as I want to have even lighting...my wife really likes the white that is produced by these EVC's and I would like to have all fire/color the same.
Are there any other tricks to MH that I am missing?
Any help/advice/suggestions are appreciated and of course welcome.
Hi, I suppose this is my first post here but I am not new to the hobby...about 2.5 years in now.
So I have 400W MH and am trying to dial in the "prefect light" or better yet, a lighting scheme that is aesthetically pleasing to my wife's eyes.
We have two dual PFO standard ballasts and were running Reeflux 10K's in the middle and 12K's on the ends but have moved from that as the 12K's were a little too blue/dark and the 10K's ran towards the pink side of the spectrum on our ballasts.
Yesterday I changed to EVC 10K's and here is where I started to see some strange things:
First, after the initial firing I noticed that two looked white while two looked more yellow. I should state here that I have the lights hooked up so that if only one ballast were on both sides of the tank are lit...I use this for a rolling up/down of the lighting on the tank...like this:
-------------------
|B1| |B2| |B1| |B2|
-------------------
So, one side of the tank was yellow and each light was on a different ballast. I noticed on the side that was yellow the bulb part inside the lamp was not parallel to the tank and the side that was white was. My question here is does it matter how the bulbs are screwed into the ballast? Does the position/angle of the light part in the bulb matter? Is there an orientation on the bulb?
Second, I did change this and noticed that the bulbs did in fact change color. But now I am seeing that the bulbs on one ballast look white and the bulbs on the other ballast look to have a yellow hue. Can ballasts that are supposed to be the same have such an impact on the color? Should I expect to see a balance of the lamp color over a period of burn in?
This is the kind of thing that can drive me crazy as I want to have even lighting...my wife really likes the white that is produced by these EVC's and I would like to have all fire/color the same.
Are there any other tricks to MH that I am missing?
Any help/advice/suggestions are appreciated and of course welcome.
