Icecap MH DE 250w bulbs

[Paul_N]

Has anyone tried the IC MH DE bulbs? I have Phoenix 14k's and was thinking about trying them.

Paul

 

[Tswifty]

I would love to try them out, but I just ordered new Pheonix 14k bulbs. Pheonix is ranked very high in terms of PAR (the top 25% on my ballast), and also has a nice color... closer to that of a 20k bulb IMO. Marc (melev) posted some SE IceCap bulb PAR numbers, and I was very impressed. The IceCap 20k bulb was pumping out double the PAR of the Radium 20k.

 

[Paul_N]

Yeah, I agree, I love the ice blue look of the Phoenix. I am at 13 months now and honestly still getting great growth. For the price it is hard to beat the phoenix. I keep thinking about 20k but I can't handle the "Barney" purple look.

 

[cloakerpoked]

Yeah, I agree, I love the ice blue look of the Phoenix. I am at 13 months now and honestly still getting great growth. For the price it is hard to beat the phoenix. I keep thinking about 20k but I can't handle the "Barney" purple look.

I'm not a huge fan of the blue blue look either. 14k with actinic supplementation is probably how I'll be for the foreseeable future. I have toyed with the idea of using 10000k VHO's to supplement 20k MH bulbs, but haven't seen it done much, so I'm not sure I want to pioneer that route.

 

[Tswifty]

I keep thinking about 20k but I can't handle the "Barney" purple look.

Plus a lot of those 20k bulbs have stupid low PAR. My Aqualine AB 20k is ridiculously weak... which I just recently found out... now I have it basically on top of the water until I can get the lights mounted in my new canopy.

 

[cloakerpoked]

Would be nice to use as actinic supplementation like Buck does though

Also, I wonder if using a 400w bulb would boost those PAR readings up to where they would need to be and give you the color you wanted without any supplementation. Of course, power consumption would be an issue at that point also.

 

[Paul_N]

Would be nice to use as actinic supplementation like Buck does though

Also, I wonder if using a 400w bulb would boost those PAR readings up to where they would need to be and give you the color you wanted without any supplementation. Of course, power consumption would be an issue at that point also.

I agree, the energy consumption would be the main issue for me. I already have the extra T5 ballast, endcaps and reflectors. As soon as I can get my tank upgraded, I will be adding 4 more T5's to supplement. If I was doing it from scratch though and and did not have the equipment for T5 already, I might go that route. The only extra equipment cost for me right now is to buy the T5 bulbs.