55 watt ballast driving 36watt bulbs?

[mr hyde]

I bought a light fixture on ebay this week for my 46 gallon. The light fixture is a 36" JbJ Versailles. It came with 4-36 watt bulbs. I opened it up today and looked at the ballasts and they say 55 watt X 2 on them. The person told me that the ballasts were replaced by JBJ. I don't know why JBJ would install 55 watt ballasts or if the originals were 36 watts X 2 or not. I'm just wondering if I could use this or not. The light fixture is too short to fit 55 watt bulbs in it but I dont want this thing to run extremely hot either with the overdriven 36 watt bulbs going and am not sure if these bulbs will get burned up fast with the high wattage. Can anyone with some electonics knowledge give me some advice on this?

[Wasserpest]

You don't overdrive bulbs that way, I believe. Electronic ballasts are load sensing, and will reduce output to shorter bulbs. That's how it works for regular fluorescent bulbs anyway, and PC lights are not that different.

[mr hyde]

hmm, i had never heard that about electronic ballasts wasserpest. Now I'm wondering if those were the correct original wattage ballasts that were installed in the light. Apparently it must be ok if JBJ intsalled them, I did email them and ask though.

[Wasserpest]

All the electronic ballasts for (regular) fluorescents do that. For example, if you have one of the 32W ballasts, you can run 4 ft tubes (that's what they are thought for), as well as 3 or 2 feet tubes, which are not overdriven that way.