"Mort"
wrote in message y.com...
Apparently you replace the balast with a higher output Electronic ballast
(About $10 from home depot) and it can double even triple the wattage
of the bulb.

Sounds good, but this will dramaticaly shorten the life of the bulb.
And be careful talking about "the wattage of the bulb" - it can be misleading.

It operates at a higher frequency and does not shorten the life of
the bulb much at all. He's had a setup with a twin 30w 36" fixture
that with this balast is putting out 130watts after 1 year.

What do you mean by "putting out 130 watts"?
You rather say "consumes 130 watts". You do not measure the light
output in watts. This is an electric not light output unit...
The light efficiency of different light sources is different, and
with given tube size and given amount of phosphors coating inside
the tube by increasing twice or triple the amount of current flow
you would rather increase the heat dissipation than ligth output.

Will this trickery work for marine aquaria and corals???

In my personal opinion you should be very sceptical analysing
stories like that. Experimenting with light in home environment,
without sufficient electical and light measuring equipment could
be very misleading and time/money consuming without good results.
Let the professionals do their jobs. If GE or Philips could drive
their bulbs with three times more light output they would do this
to outcompete their rivals but there is reason they do not do this.

And reasons a
- dramatic shortening bulb life
- increased heat production in the fixture
- lowered light efficiency
(much lower amount of light produced from 1Watt of electricity)
- color rendering change due to phosphor emitting color spectrum shifts
- color temperature change due to the same spectrum shifts

You decide. But in my opinion it is not worth it...