MH bulb LUX test after 7 months

reefkoi

reefkoi

Premium Member
I have been running the Phoenix 14K 250 watt d.e. bulbs for a while now. I replaced all of them after 7 months. I had one bulb come in damaged so I left one bulb in a housing and couldn't remember which one it was. So my new bulb came in today and I looked at all the lights but the bulbs were all looking the same, I suspected which one it was because the middle of the tank seemed a tad dimmer but I wanted to be sure I replaced the correct one and not one I replaced a week ago!!!

So I got out my wife's lux meter (thanks honey) and measured at the glass shield all of them. They were right about at 1550
and there was one at no more than 1200 . It could be 1200 or 12,000 I can't quite understand the meter but the point is the readings were consistent and the 7 month bulb lost right at 25% of the intensity.

Just thought some of you would like to see the result. I have left a 7 month old bulb on my 10 and I am taking readings today and will do again at 1 year to see how much more it drops off.
I think anything more than a 30% 40% is gone as far as I'm concerned, more than that and it would be a shock to the corals waiting that long.

Chris
 
Nice data. Have you read the article about the Phoenix bulbs in this months issue of RK mag? You can read it here . The difference is, the author measured his with a PAR meter. I would love to have one of those. Its about the same results. Around 20-25% loss after a year. Not too bad for cheap bulbs. If you have any used Phoenix that your gonna trash, let me know. Ill take them. I ran Phoenix bulbs before on magnetic ballast but I would like to see what they look like on electronic.
 
Sure Russ you can have a couple. I am keeping the rest to use on the 10, I figure since its so shallow and so overlit I can use the old bulbs on it from now on. I should only need to keep a couple for that and for spares if a new one fails.

I'm going to go read that article right now, did they test at 6 mos.? or just at a year?
 
Hey Chris, I would like to try one of your old bulbs if you have any left. I want to see the difference in color to the other bulbs I have. I have a Hamilton 14k (ahhh?) and a Guisemann 20k sp? (nice).
 
Russ, do you know what a par meter would cost? I think this is something that the club should look into buying sometime in the future so that everyone can make tests on their own tanks to know when they need to change bulbs.
 
Sure Todd you can have one too, Maybe I'll just bring them to the meet for you guys, we'll have a bulb raffle ;)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9686860#post9686860 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by racer69
Russ, do you know what a par meter would cost? I think this is something that the club should look into buying sometime in the future so that everyone can make tests on their own tanks to know when they need to change bulbs.
Click to expand...

I agree. It would be nice for the club to have one. They are around 300 bucks though.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9691217#post9691217 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Deuce67
Some of those links show a Lux or light meter. Need a PAR meter.
Click to expand...

Some of the Lux meters do both.
 
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