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View Full Version : Lighting help needed, Old Vs. New


Tazz11
04/21/2011, 11:54 AM
Any help or suggestion you can provide are greatly appreciated! I currently have an old light hood, running 2 10 K metal Halides with Two 48 inch super actinide standard fluorescent bulbs, with some LED moon light that were added by me a couple of years ago. Let me first say, but for the consumption of electricity I have always liked this hood and have had good results IMO as far as good growth and color consistancy with my current set up.

Now for the problem, the past few months i have been having issues with my actinics, either they will not light up at all, or they will simply fire up but not completely illuminate. My last purchase of new Bulbs was about a month ago, and since that time they have started to act up again, I assume it can't be the bulbs being to old.I have also changed the ballast that controls the actinics. It seems no matter what I do I get about a month of operation out of new bulbs before I begin to have an issue. Sometimes if I keep them off for a day or two they will fire up with no issue and operate flawlessly for another month.
I consider myself to be pretty handy but at this point I am ready to ditch the entire hood and start over. Not sure if aim dealing with bad conectors inside the hood and not sure how to test if that is the issue. If anyone thinks they have any suggestions for me I would love to hear them. Also if would be better off moving to a newer hood, suggestions on that topic would be appreciated as well. My only issue is the many corals currently have and the desire to make sure they are not adversely affected by the switch.

Sorry for being long winded here, I just want my tank to look the way it is supposed to and for my Critters to be as happy as I can keep them.

Thanks in advance,

Scott

Tazz11
04/22/2011, 08:59 AM
OK so maybe I'm not asking the question right???? Not sure but I guess I'll ask this instead.After reading through many of the posts on lighting and trying to do some research on my own I think i have come to the decision that it is time for new lights. so here is what i would like to know.

I have several soft corals as well as several LPS in my tank they include, 2 Acan Lords with several heads each, a large Frogspawn, a large green Finger leather, Carnation coral, A few Ricorida, Xenia, Button polyps, and several Mushroom colonies.

After reading a couple of posts on this forum I look at Aquatraders and they have several light hoods that look as if they will work with my system. The on I am looking at is a 48'' hood complete with 2- 10K HO lamps, 2 HO blues and 4 LED's all T-5's with the exception of the LED's I assume Moon lights. looks like the hood is made by Odyssea. I want to get lights up and running in my tank as soon as possible due to the fact that I cant seems to get my Actinics to work at all now on my old hood as stated in my privious post.


Hope I can get some direction this time.


Thanks