overdriving flourescents

[bigredspecial]

sorry if this was already asked, but I've read posts about hooking a 4 tube ballast up to 2 tubes to overdrive them; what I'm wondering is can a 24" tube be run by a 48" ballast?

Specifically, I can get a 2x40w 48" ballast, but my tank will only fit 24"tubes.

What will hooking this up do? will it push the two 20w, 24" tubes to 80w, will it still be 40w, or will something get damaged?

 

[bigredspecial]

noone knows? I thought it was pretty straight foreward.....

 

[wayne]

Sorry for the delay replying. If you have an electronic ballast you're fine to go, and not much will go wrong. If you have a mag ballast then nothing will work bar the rec combination. Bear in mind that if you don't know specifically it's an electronic ballast it's almost certainly magnetic.

 

[bigredspecial]

the reason I wanted to know was this:
http://www.petsandponds.com/securestore/c195895p16349906.2.html

the real question, though, is will it drive 24" tubes at 40w each?

they sell a 24" kit, but at only 20w/tube; I already have two 33w tubes(2.64w/gallon; two 40's would bring me up to 3.2, plus better quality tubes).

 

[Lotus]

There's no reason those endcaps won't overdrive your bulbs. However, I'm not sure you'll get 40watts out of each of them, I believe you lose some power, maybe consider them as 30w output each. Remember you'll have to replace bulbs more often when they're overdriven.