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[Iceman30]

Yeah, the E=ballast fires MH bulbs. Icecap sells a MH electronic ballast also. I have always used coil and cap ballasts myself. I had an icecap vho ballast once, went through 2 in like 3 months then sold vho's and went to MH. I had 2 250 20k on 150 gallon and was great for everything. 175's are good, but not much to step up to 250's, not even much more heat, step up to 400 and you get lots of heat to deal with too, but if you have chiller, or sump with some fans and auto top off for the evap. you will be ok...can't always go with total watts per gallon..MH are more intense therfore push further into the water. At 12" 175 watt MH will have more PAR which is the photosynthetic use of the light than 400 watts of VHO..175 good to like 18" deep 250 24 to 30 and 400 30" and up, depth of water. If your clam is on the bottom of your tank..he will get enough light to survive and adapt to that amount of light but clams, like sps like intense light, email me and i'll send you a pic of mine, if you want...400 watt 20k with 2 96 watt pc on 30 gallon long, only 16" deep..I don't run the PC and the mh at the same time for temp reasons and because the mh is 20k..but clams and torch open up good under PC but when they go off and MH comes on BOOM they open way up !!