Upgrading The Coralife Aqualight Pro 2x150 Halide

Well I have purchased 2 MH lights from Hamilton, and have no problems with either lights. Sure the ballasts aren't as pretty as some of the others, like Ice Cap or Galaxy, but they work well and I didn't see a jump in my electric bill. Dual 250W will probably run you about $300 or so?

 

I purchased a galaxy dual 250 watt electronic ballast (see link)

Sunlight supply Galaxy metal halide ballast. Saltwater aquarium supplies & equipment from Salty Critter.

and i love it. If you look below the balasts they also sell the cords wwich may help with your wiring

 

I'm thinking of getting this dual 250W Aqua Medic electronic ballast. It's $209. From what I can see, it accepts standard 120 plugs coming from the lights.

Anyone have any experience with this one?

 

Did you purchase the ballasts too, Mike?

 

Thanks, Sean_p_f. I came across that ballast in my search. I haven't ruled it out.

 

Thanks for the news, tatted4ever. FYI, 18 AWG wire, so long as it's rated for 90C, will safely carry almost 18 amps, believe it or not. I was surprised to see this in The Code, as 12 AWG is rated for only 15 amps, but that's not 90C rated conductor.

FWIW, a 250W bulb running off a 120V fed ballast will draw 2.08 amps, and only 1.04 amps if you feed the ballast with a 240V circuit.

Since I'm going to have to replace the sockets anyway, I'll use the ballast-provided wire if I go the Lumatek route.

Thanks again for the good info. I'd be interested in a confirmation that the larger form-factor sockets will fit in the fixture with no special accomodations. I suspect they will, as I would think Coralife uses the same fixture for the 250W as they do for the 150W lights.

 

I did get the entire setup from Hamilton. They include the ballast, they have their own quick disconnects. I was looking at the Aqua-Medic Dual 175W ballasts for my 65G tank too.

 

Back to it. For starters, here's a shot of the fixture opened up and on its back.



I've ordered the ballasts from AquaCave, and in the meantime I purchased some butt splices and plastic floating-type terminal blocks.







I thought while I waited for the ballast and new 250W HQI socket ends to arrive, I'd work on the fan.

What I'm doing is rewiring the fan so that it's controlled by the timer when the actinics come on. Long story short, as the fixture was wired from the factory--the fan ran off one of the halide ballasts. Since I'm getting new ballasts, it's not going to work. (The old magnetic ballasts powered the fan by a 230V lead and a 120V lead as the hot and neutral. This was a very sketchy way of doing it, but it works, I guess. The difference in potential in 230 and 120 created in essence a 110 supply for the fan). Here's a picture of the fixture as prewired from the factory; before I got my hands on it.



With my new electronic ballast, there will be two hots and a ground, so I rerouted the fan circuit to utilize the incoming actinic cable. Here's a shot to show the switch associated with the actinic cable. The actinic cable coming in is the second from the right, in the picture above. The power switch is immediately to the right.



Here's the switch from the outside of the fixture.



First, I needed to cut the existing leads to the fan, because they're coming from the old ballast, and I'll not be using them. Cut them close, safed them off with a blue wirenut, and used a wire-keeper from inside the fixture to snug it away.



Moving along. So I'm using these terminal blocks because they're safer than wirenuts. They won't come apart, and the splices are made with a screwdriver.





I had to make two jumpers. These act just like wirenuts. Instead of putting 6 wires under one nut, the jumper makes cleaner work of it. There are 6 holes. Three holes are for jumper wires, one for the fan, and two for the existing line into which I'm splicing.

The terminal blocks are made to be cut and used as needed.

So you get the idea, here's a simple jumper. This won't be used here, however--as we need 6 holes. These have only 4.



Here are the two jumpers pre-made. One for the hot, one for the neutral. One end will go to the fan, and the plastic terminal-block end will used to splice into the existing wiring.



Next, I used a butt splice to tie the jumpers in to the fan leads.



Now I cut into the actinic incoming cable for the neutral and tie in the jumper. Lastly, I tie into the hot 120V lead, but after the switch. This way, the fan is switched off the actinics circuit. (So when the actinic lighting is clicked on by the timer, so is the fan).

After the connections are made, a mounting pad with a cable tie snugs everything neatly away.



I plugged in the actinic cord, clicked the switch on, and on comes the actinic lights and the fan--now on the same circuit.

When the new ballasts come, I'll update and post pics again.

Hopefully this was informative to anyone with similar interests in mind.

Thanks for reading.

 

Well, I called AquaCave and was told the ballast I ordered wasn't in stock. Instead, they're going to send me Galaxy dual 250W ballast. I've spoken to a few folks, and they had nothing but good things to say about the Galaxy ballast. AquaCave threw in two cords for free. Very gracious of them I thought.

My bulbs came in yesterday. I'm hoping by Saturday to have the new fixture doing duty above my tank.

 

What bulbs were you/ are you using. Temp wise. I would love a before after pic if it is not too late for the before.