aquarium metal halide

my buddy used to work at a pet store and threw me an old mh set up they used to have covering there giant oyster....but the bulb looks alot different from normal grow lights like its smaller and thin...is this able to be used or is it for aquarium plants...i dont have a bulb for it though or i woulda tried it out

let me know cause if i cant use it i would try to sell it on craiglist or something
...or is it garbage?

is it double ended? Its probably an hqi, it basically the same thing as a regular bulb just different style. Depending on what k the bulb is you can use it for vegging. saltwater aquariums usually use really blue lights around 14k you want around 7k for veg.

i figured veg. is my best bet to test it?..and whats double ended, it looks a hps but instead of being rectangular like those mh/hps systems in boxes...its a circle

hm do you have a pic? double ended means that in goes into the socket on both sides, if that makes sense. Look up HQI bulbs and you can seen what im talking about. i dont think ive ever seen a triangle bulb. It will probably work tho. how many watts is it? and look on the bulb for what kelvin the bulb is. You might need a new bulb if its old. MH bulbs only last 6-12 months depending on brand and usage, then they lose intensity.

yes.those look like the bulbs that go in, and there isnt a bulb in it. and the ballast is like a circle with i believe glass over it.i will post a picture once i get ahold of a camera

is there anything i can do with the ballast itself it says its for 150 watt mh ballast...bnut is there anyway to change that to being able to do a 150 hps??? i really hope it can be tweaked for the swap that would be amazing!!!!!

please get back to me

btw
its a coralife-aqualight hqi metal halide ballast

Only thing different between an HPS and MH ballasts is the HPS requires an ignitor to get it going, so you can retrofit a MH ballast to use an HPS by wiring in an ignitor

depending on the kelvin of the bulb, most aquarium MH bulbs are from 6500k - 20k. You can usually look at the either end of the bulb itself and see markings, that typically say what the Kelvin is... If you cant find a marking stating a 4-5 digit K, plug the bulb in and check it out, if it is blue chances are its 14k-20k a 6500k metal halide is normally quite yellow, 10k bulbs are common also and are kinda yellow also, it has some blue but hard to see. 6500k flower, 3000k veg, 10000k finishing is the ultimate metal halide grow bulbs. many people do not use 10k bulbs for finishing but actually do a great job finishing off.

what temperature does glass shatter at? i have the 150 hps that i got from my buddy pretty cool its like one from the side of a building and pretty small. it has a glass sheild under it...if i put that on a glass patio table would it shatter the glass underneith of it? please help asap, i would like to run this during the day with the sun out and a fan

would it melt or what?!?