Metal halide bulb help
- Thread starter OceanTidesAudio
- Start date
Cool I'll have to do it tomorrow night and post any updates. It's not dead but who knows how old it is, I know I've had it since December plus the person before me had it for like a year. I noticed one of the zoas I fragged for a friend had a really long stalk in my tank and once in his, it shrunk back down, which was my first clue it was loosing par.
That bulb at 2 years will still put out quite a bit more Radiated Watts than a brand new Gen 3 Radion, so don't look at zoa stretch as a sign of much. Radiated watts is a better indicator of output than PAR, mostly because the machines that measure radiated watts are quite accurate and are not hobby grade like a PAR meter. It could be light quality or any other number of things that you are seeing with the zoas, including transfer and acclimation.
Most MH bulbs lose output initially and then stay steady for quite some time. Spectrum also does not change much over the first few years. Many people are using MH bulbs for more than a year when ran to spec and I have personally used 14K Phoneix for 2 years - when I replace them, they new bulbs don't even phase the corals without any acclimation. I would not use them much past 2 years.
Most MH bulbs lose output initially and then stay steady for quite some time. Spectrum also does not change much over the first few years. Many people are using MH bulbs for more than a year when ran to spec and I have personally used 14K Phoneix for 2 years - when I replace them, they new bulbs don't even phase the corals without any acclimation. I would not use them much past 2 years.