Lighting question (non ceph)

[bagarius]

I have in my garage, accomplishing nothing more than wasting shelf space, a 100w mercury vapor lamp. It has a very nice white light with only a slightly bluish hue. It's a non phosphor lamp, so it would have the very strong UVa, blue and yellow bands. Would I be able to use this for my reef tank? Is there something special about the spectrum of the HID lights sold specifically for reef tanks? If the bulb it's self would work, I could easily re wire the ballast and the bulb into some sort of attractive hanging fixture to go above the tank, I just need to know if my light's output would work. After all, the ballast and the bulb is the expensive part, the fixture is easy and inexpensive.

BTW, I'm fairly experienced at wiring things like this. I'm not stabbing in the dark with that aspect of this potential project (lol).

 

[CaptFish]

Those were banned in the USA in 2008 and will be banned in the EU in 2015. but other than that it would work in theory.

 

[bagarius]

Those were banned in the USA in 2008 and will be banned in the EU in 2015. but other than that it would work in theory.

That's actually why it's in the garage, I replaced it with a 70w high pressure sodium. I just figured that this might work in theory. Thanks for the info.