[matt h]

or a combination of the two

fitted new bulbs 14k,[used 10k before]M/lux
i fitted these and had them raised 8" ish ,well in 3-4 days [i was away]they have fried my sps,some have bleached some just burnt on upper edges /branches..

i removed and replaced with old bulbs and they started to colour up again,but i decided to refit new bulbs and raise lights ,so there now at 30" above tank water and after 2days they have burnt the top sps....

is it bad bulbs [400watts] or is the water to clear...thinking of going to 250's

anyone help?

[Tony B]

matt h, on Jul 15 2009, 02:57 PM, said:

or a combination of the two

fitted new bulbs 14k,[used 10k before]M/lux
i fitted these and had them raised 8" ish ,well in 3-4 days [i was away]they have fried my sps,some have bleached some just burnt on upper edges /branches..

i removed and replaced with old bulbs and they started to colour up again,but i decided to refit new bulbs and raise lights ,so there now at 30" above tank water and after 2days they have burnt the top sps....

is it bad bulbs [400watts] or is the water to clear...thinking of going to 250's

anyone help?

Are the new bulbs marine lux? How many months old were your old bulbs? How many hours a day do you light your tank?

I would try just one new bulb and keep all the other old bulbs running. Considering you've raised the new bulb 30" above the water this should be fine imo (but how high did your old bulbs sit above the water?).

Have you been dosing vodka & or vinegar & or sugar?

[lindsay]

Any chances of some pics and some test of water?.

[chriss]

Unless the old lamps were really down on par, raising the new ones to 30 inches sounds a little extreme, of course, don't know how far up they were before.

One other thing that might be worth checking is to make sure none of the new lamps are cracked in which case you could be leaking UV. These are single ended lamps? If not and they are double-ended lamps you are using cover glasses aren't you? In the distant past I was using un-shielded double ended lamps, which was fine since they were specficially UV protected, when I replaced them I forgot all about the uv protection which the new lamps didn't have. I moved to singled-enders in the end to avoid the issue.

Chris

[matt h]

bulbs are both old and new marine lux just different kelvin rating...

lindsay.water paras,dont see how this would do this but here they are amm nitrite 0 nitrate below 2,phoz 0 on deltec,mag 1320,cal 420 kh 8.4

tony i dont add anything...cal reactor and water changes only..

lights were 8" off the water surface to begin with...

[chriss]

At 8" before, having to move to 30", to me, indicates that either the old lamps were extremely down on par or something else is seriously awry with your lighting. Going up in par usually results in a drop in par, but I guess they could still be brighter than the old ones.

Have you checked the new lamps for any damage? If the corals are fine under the old lamps but not the new ones, and the old ones are brighter than a 20W night light, then it has to be the lamps.

For comparison, I've had/got 400watters sat less than 12 inches from the surface with corals at the water surface and loving it.

Chris

[Tony B]

chriss, on Jul 15 2009, 05:15 PM, said:

At 8" before, having to move to 30", to me, indicates that either the old lamps were extremely down on par or something else is seriously awry with your lighting. Going up in par usually results in a drop in par, but I guess they could still be brighter than the old ones.

Have you checked the new lamps for any damage? If the corals are fine under the old lamps but not the new ones, and the old ones are brighter than a 20W night light, then it has to be the lamps.

For comparison, I've had/got 400watters sat less than 12 inches from the surface with corals at the water surface and loving it.

Chris

I agree with Chris ^^^^

Check for damaged bulbs.

I would switch at least 2 of your bulbs back to the old ones and run with them for a few weeks, just to be sure this is a lighting issue.

[lindsay]

Reason for the water test was high alk levels can also cause this,not the case here. Agree with Tony and chriss sounds like the bulbs could be at fault .That said if the old bulbs were very old and well down on performance and your water is very clear then this too could be giving you the bleaching.Like tony suggests try changing only two to start with.

[matt h]

ta guys ive replaced the bulbs with the old ones 3 days ago and yes polyps are returning [to the good parts only]...cant see any bulb fault but its got to have been these...
ive spokern to supplier[rob] and hes never had this trouble before... wasnt expecting more really....

he also thought that as bulbs were on 8hrs a day for 10months the par rating shouldnt have dropped that much on the old bulbs ??[using coralvue electronic ballasts all the originals]

so now what do i do try new ones [another brand]

ive used blv -coralvue and marine lux 10's before and never even raised them with no running problems....change twice a yr

[Tony B]

matt h, on Jul 15 2009, 10:35 PM, said:

ta guys ive replaced the bulbs with the old ones 3 days ago and yes polyps are returning [to the good parts only]...cant see any bulb fault but its got to have been these...
ive spokern to supplier[rob] and hes never had this trouble before... wasnt expecting more really....

he also thought that as bulbs were on 8hrs a day for 10months the par rating shouldnt have dropped that much on the old bulbs ??[using coralvue electronic ballasts all the originals]

so now what do i do try new ones [another brand]

ive used blv -coralvue and marine lux 10's before and never even raised them with no running problems....change twice a yr

I would run your old lamps for at least a month or two, just to be sure it is a lighting issue. If it is, then look at other lighting options.

[matt h]

right im now looking to see if these bulbs can be tested for there uv protection...running under the old lights growth has started to explode again 1-2mm a day on some of the stags,all other corals are returnin to there original colours also...


anyone know if you can get bulbs uv protection tested..

[lindsay]

Not sure on the uv test matt,so at the moment it seems you have 4 duff lamps which is quite odd going on the amount of lamps ive changed here with no problems.Is it possible the new lamps at a different k is upsetting your corals with the clear water you have.If you can get one of the lamps down to me i could put it on the sps system for a few days and monitor the acros ,not doubting your findings but it will confirm the lamps are faulty.

[Tony B]

lindsay, on Jul 21 2009, 09:04 AM, said:

Not sure on the uv test matt,so at the moment it seems you have 4 duff lamps which is quite odd going on the amount of lamps ive changed here with no problems.Is it possible the new lamps at a different k is upsetting your corals with the clear water you have.If you can get one of the lamps down to me i could put it on the sps system for a few days and monitor the acros ,not doubting your findings but it will confirm the lamps are faulty.

^^^^ Superb offer and idea ^^^^

[chriss]

For UV testing, you can get cards for monitoring sunlight uv don't know how much use they would be.

Chris

[matt h]

lindsay,top offer thanks,what i think is theres one bulb thats faulty ,as there was one an odd colour to the rest,i moved this a few times to see if the ballast it was in made a difference..mainly as the right end got really hammered the first time,the left end didnt suffer straight away as much,top of the rockwork/ corals got burnt a little and possibly more once lights were lifted..
im gonna look first into seeing if these can be tested lindsay as im a little worried that these/this bulb will murder your corals....im also going to speak again to rob and see what he wants to do about my damage,cant be anything but his lights as all my frags in the shed are and have been unaffective during the whole problem...so that rules out water issues

[lindsay]

Cool matt ,let us know how you get on .

[Paul Ellerbeck]

Hello Guys, I'm new to this board so er hello everyone. On this subject I had something very similar a few years back when I replaced 2 250 W Giesman lamps. After about 3 days the corals were literally being burnt along with the Coraline Algae going white in fact the damage was so bad you could see light beam / headlight type effect of white following the light spread. Coraline on the back was purple where the T5 reflectors shaded it but below their protection was white.

I suspected UV to be the issue so began to experiment with an electronic UV tester, the type you take on holiday to test the UV exposure limits for your kids (burn time)

In the Maldives you get aprox 1.5 hour of allowed exposure at 13:00 under these new bulbs the burn time was 10 minutes and the UV index was 15+ (not sure how that measures in tech terms). I replaced back to the old bulbs and the burn time went up to 16 hours and the UV index down to 1.

I Chucked the bulbs and bought 2 new ones this time BLV 14K's run the same test and the UV index was now 2 and the burn time was 12 hours and slowly all recovered.

Ever since i have always tested new bulbs and literally in the last month have replaced 2 Radium 400 W 20K's to 2 400W Marinelux 14K's, these supplement the 400W 14K BLV, both the Marinelux and BLV have a UV index of 1 and a burn time of over 16 hours.

[karnivor]

what a damned good idea!!
I have been pondering how to measure UV output, but it never occured to me to use a simple gadget like that.
Have you got some details of the tester?
Cheers

Oh....and welcome aboard.

[lindsay]

As tony say great idea and welcome.

[chriss]

Sounds like the cards I mentioned in post 14, see I don't talk bubbles, drips and dkh all the time

Chris