Judging bulb age

[Stephen73ta]

I am running two 150 w 10k bulbs right now. I bought them used. Is there anyway to tell how old the bulbs are? My sps are bleeching and i cant seem to figure out the problem. My birds od paradise bleeched in one day. ahh..

[Mopar Reefer]

How far up in the tank are your sps? Could be too much light. Did you upgrade from T-5's PC's or CF's? If so, you would need to acclimate them to the stronger light.

[redfishsc]

+1 on what Mopar said.


Also, if you had halides before, what color temp were you running? If you had a higher K bulb (14,000 or 20,000K) and then changed to 10K, this might also cause a problem.

[serpentman]

A PAR meter will give you an idea on what the bulbs are putting out.

[pugbreath13]

I've never used this as a gauge but when I change the bulbs after a year the center tube is usually dark/black. I have a 250w on my frag tank for 6 months now and the center tube looks frosted.

[ERICinFL]

Any time you change bulbs, it's a good idea to move them up a few inches from your tank, then move them closer to their final spot over a week or so. That'll give your corals a chance to adjust to the new bulbs. If you can't raise them, shorten the photo period a few hours (example: 10hrs. to 6hrs. then increase an hour every few days). Unfortunately, it's hard to tell a used bulb's age, just by looking at it. You basically have to trust the person you buy them from.

[BeanMachine]

Yeah, considering I bought a used fixture about 6 months ago that came with two brand new pc lamps for it in the box.

Well, when I finally changed out the PCs last week, that NIB lamp working for about an hour before it went out.

Obviously the lamp wasn't new, but they guy I bought them from told me they were.

[Stephen73ta]

my sps are about 6" below the water and the lamps are sitting 12" above the water level. i think i might try moving them lower. idk i feel like they are dead already, can sps be recovered after they bleach?

[Toddrtrex]

What were you running before hand?

Do you have the UV shield in place?

[Stephen73ta]

UV shield is there. this is a fairly new tank, so i started out with the MH lamps. i'm not sure what lights they were under before me. i'm trying to find out now.