Lighting question

Victoria · 11-16-2006, 10:56 AM

I have not been through all the lighting podcasts yet. Rob may have already covered this question. But if anyone can answer this question that would be great.
My ballast on my pc has been failing ie.. Lights not as bright, they flicker, color on some coral fading a bit. Anyway my question is , I'm about to change the ballast, do I need to replace the blubs too? The blubs are only 2 months old, do you think the ballast failing has shortened the life of the blubs?

**JustDavidP** · 11-16-2006, 11:24 AM

Victoria.. I am far from a lighting expert, but from what I understand, unless your bulbs seem "Smoked" or have a darker "burnt" look or area of darness on them, they should be okay.

If your ballast was underfiring, you should be good. If you were "overdriving" bulbs, you would shorten their life span.

IMHO, you really should keep up with PC bulbs anyways..they have a much shorter life span than MH or other lighting and even shorter than the manufacturers state. I found that my bulbs "Stray" in their spectrum in and around 5-6 months.

Dave

**Amphibious** · 11-16-2006, 11:53 AM

Victoria,

I think you will be able to answer that question after you change the ballast. Usually, I like to take the cheap way out of a situation like this. Suppose it is the bulbs. You may replace the ballast and find that out. Since you will likely need bulbs in the future, I'd buy the bulbs first on the chance they went bad. If the new bulbs flicker then it's probably the ballast. That's my way of solving this type of problem. since your bulbs are only 2 months old, it's probably the ballast.

Does that make any sense???

Victoria · 11-16-2006, 02:45 PM

Yes, thanks guys. I do change my PC every 6 months faithfully. I also have an extra set in my fish closet. I think I will just try these blubs, I'll check the color and see if its at least pre-ballast failure condition. If not I'll change the blubs. I was thinking of changing my MH blub to a 14k, what do you think? It has a 10k in there now.

That's what I like about this hobby, if you are not spending $$ on it your not doing it...