Using Halogen instead

[LiveRock]

From what I gather, to obtain really bright light of the right colour, say, 10,000K, metal halides are the solution.

I have been a number of DIY shops and metal ha. are not common. EVen if they are available, they are certainly not cheap.

I noticed many DIY shops selling 150W, 200W halogen bulbs. some are used in flood lamps too. Is it possible to substitute these MH with these 200W halogen bulbs? Obviously, there must a reason for MH as these halogen only cost a tiny fraction of MH, say S$20 only

But... I'm just asking, has anyone tried using 150W or 200W halogen bulbs for your marine tank before?

[BarraCudaTM]

halogen is far too yellow to be used and not good for photosynthesis

their energy efficiency is not good either, they use electricity to heat the filament to glow

the only plus pt is that they have a warm up time of about 1-2 secs only

[Tanzy]

Halogen lamp have light that are too red, it will not provide the right spectrum for photosynthesis in corals. It will be quite good at growing a lot of nuisance algae though! Any lamp with a temperature below 5000K is useless for marine applications. Also the Halogen lamps have a lower intensity of light compared to MH or FL per watt.

[loonz]

Halogens produce a lot of heat as well

[LiveRock]

Thanks guys, I get the point

No wonder nobody tried halogen

[Achilles Tang]

I can switch on halogen lights in my hall and because it's pointed at my tank's feature wall... it also adds orangey yellow light into my tank.

Brings out the reds and yellows! But it's awful looking on its own.

[Limpc]

Wonder if anyone saw the light along the pathway of Pasir Ris MRT (along bicycle racks)? Well, they look as if like MH quality. They have white casing and are really bright.

What kind of light are those ?

Limpc