MH lights acting weird

[t5Nitro]

Two of my pendants seem to come on then turn off. The one came back on but the other has yet to turn on today. What's going on? The thing I worry about is my anemone is not getting mug light now for a few days. I'm relying on opening the drapes and the sun takes the place of that pendant for only about 1 hour of good light per day.

 

[125G Reefer]

Ok, trouble shooting time. You need a known good lamp for testing. You need to install the new lamp one at a time into the fixture. Let it run for some time, if it stays lit, then the bulb you removed was going out, if it does not stay lit, then its the ballast. Are you running these lights on a duel ballast? Or, you have recently moved a bunch of stuff around with regards to the wiring, and bumped something out fo place.

 

[t5Nitro]

Have it on a dual ballast. I have a fairly new bulb laying around I can try.

 

[125G Reefer]

Usually those ballast are supposed to run both lamps, not one at a time, so if one side is going out, it will take out the other side as well.

 

[t5Nitro]

Well they were both out. Then I unplugged it for a while and plugged it back in. Still right now it is running one but not the other. I'm sure the anemone isn't liking a few days of minimal light. I think tomorrow when the lights are out I'm going to switch bulbs in that one pendant. If it doesn't start up I'm going to take the middle pendant and put it over it. At least the middle section has been getting light and the nem can get a bit.

 

[125G Reefer]

cool.

 

[DarG]

What wattage and type of bulbs, DE or SE? What type of ballast, electronic or magnetic? If magnetic, what type is it? Probe start? Pulse start? ... or what is the ANSI code of the ballast? How old is the ballast?
What bulbs are you using? How old are they?

There are many potential things causing the problem. Just one example ... If it's a magnetic probe start ballast and you are running pulse start bulbs, it's common that the ballast will fire the lamps for a while but as they get older, the probe start ballast may no longer be able to fire the lamps.

So, lots more info would make it much easier to really help get to the root of the problem.