The bulbs you have should run on either 55 or 65 watt ballasts.
Taken from hellolights.com...
Q. Are these bulbs 55W or 65W?
A. (Note: This applies to both Compact Fluorescent and Fluorescent bulbs only.) Actual wattage to the lamp is primarily a factor of the lamp electrical characteristics and the ballast driving the lamp. Without getting too technical, the wattage marking on the lamp does not necessarily determine the actual wattage to the lamp. (i.e. you could have 100W to a lamp that is marked 55W!!) Fixtures with different ballast will have different wattage to the lamp and as such the wattage marking on the lamp is for reference only.
Actual wattage to the lamp operated by electronic ballast can only be measured using special high frequency wattage measuring equipment. Input wattage to the ballast is not a direct indication of wattage to the lamp.
Simply put, 55W and 65W lamps have same or similar electrical characteristics and therefore if one replaces either lamp into a given fixture (either a 55W or 65W system) then the wattage to the lamps will be driven by the ballast(s) of such system. Wattage to the lamp determines lumen output or total light output of the lamp.
Conclusion: Lamps marked 55W or 65W can be interchanged with similar or equivalent light output performance. The ballast drives the bulb.
Edited by BananaTropics
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My PC balasts just started smoking I had two 65W's and they both started hissing and blew up. does anyone know where I can pick two up ASAP! my sump had a 65WPC on it which I brought up top but 65w in a 50G tank won't keep my corals alive very long. The lighting was built by coral sea life.com which as its web page confirms has just gone out of buisness so i'm sure no warranty
