How many months do you run your Radiums

tegee

Premium Member
I am interested to know how many months do people run their Radiums? I have (3) 250w SE Radiums that are going on their 10th month. I heard that somewhere in the 9-10 month range is the max usage life.

I run them on magnetic M80 HQI ballasts for 9 hrs. At $90 each I would like to get as much use as possible:).

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.
 
I always ran mine for 12 or 13 months before switching them out. Didn't see any ill effects either.
 
That is what I thought Dave...but spoke to someone today that is pretty knowledgeable on lighting and he suggested no more then 9-10 months, which surprised me.

Do you run electronic or magnetic ballasts?

Thanks.........
 
250 watt Radiums on HQI ballasts. Test the par and you will see that there is not much difference on the 250's from 9 months to 12 months. Seriously, I've tested four bulbs twice now in two years;) The 400 watt bulbs on HQI ballast are overdriven and only work for about 6-7 months, but the 250s are driven appropriately on HQI ballast and my experience is they run just fine for 12-13 months and the corals do well under them as well.
 
A lot of folks say this or that because they heard this or that from someone else. My take is that you look at your numbers and look at your livestock and decide for yourself. There is nothing magical that happens at the 9 month mark unless you are pregnant:D
 
That is great info Dave and very helpful. That is what I thought in regard to properly driven on HQI ballasts. That they are NOT overdriven and drive per Radium's spec.

On another quick topic......how many of you have glass shields on your reflectors? I am running the LumenMax Elites for the past 9 months and installed the glass shields at roughly the halfway mark because I got nervous about one breaking with water splash, etc. I am considering taking off because it cuts down on pat intensity by about 10%. I know when I was running my old LumenBrights that I did not have a choice because they do not have a glass shield option.....just curious!

Anyone's thoughts/experiences........
 
I have Lumenbright's that will not accept glass on the 250's and would gladly lose 10% to be able to use glass. I will have to replace my Lumenbright's in a year or two because of all the salt splashes they have taken in three years. The more splashes they get, the lower the PAR and I can easily clean a piece of glass, but the reflectors won't clean up.
 
Dave.....your experiences you share are awesome.

I am not bashing LumenBrights, great reflectors and ran them for several years. It is a loooong story, but I switched to LumenMax Elites and IMHO they is no comparison. VERY happy with them and they have an extremely nice broad spread across my tank.....hth.
 
Thanks. I really love the Lumenbrights actually. The Lumenarc III's with glass shield are lacking in the way they spread the light, to my eyes.
 
Ok, I have two 400w radiums on a galaxy ballasts, and I don't overdrive them. How long should I expect the Radiums to last on my setup?
 
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