Murphey always strikes when everything else is protected....

[ReefWreak]

Yea, so my parents called me yesterday saying that the tank looked green. Okay, maybe some extra algae, maybe the skimmer hasn't been working up to it's full potential, maybe too much feeding. Not the end of the world.

Then today I get a call. Gee, your birdsnest coral is all white, there are very few polyps left on it... Well, maybe the galaxia under it has been growing and stinging further and further up the body. Well, lets see, a lot of the other corals on that side of the tank are white too. Lots of polyps white, hard to see any colors.

I smack my forhead. Crap.

"well, check the light bulb for cracks"

Boom, surely enough, the bulb is cracked up, and has been pouring UV into the tank for a few days now. at least I talked the problem through, and my dad just changed out the bulb with an extra spare that I keep around. He said lots of things were severly damaged by them, a lot with UV burn, lots of bleaching, and about 1/4 of the frags for the swap got nuked. We'll see if they pull through or not. Now half the tank is a 14k Hamilton (maybe a 2 year old 10k Coralvue, as he said it looked very pink).

We'll see how it goes. At least I get new bulbs out of it? But less money to save up to pay my parents back for aquarium stuff...

Darn you Murphy.

 

[Young Frankenstein]

Mannnn good thing you told us that.......now I know how to bargain with you at the frag swap "xmmmm this coral looks like it has UV burns, take $ 5 or leve it "

 

[pedromatic]

Oh, nice one, Steve. Turn lemons into lemonade
Sorry to hear about your crisis, Eric. It's amazing that your folks can manage your tank while you're at school. If it was up to my wife to take care of my tanks... well, I shudder to think. Good luck.

 

[dguest98]

That sucks, hey I didnt mention I graduated from FSU in 98.
I guess this is a good segway into a lighting question. I used to have 2 xm 10k and 2 VHO super actinic. I thought it looked a bit flushed when the MH were on. What do you think about maybe 14K or something?

 

[loyalrogue]

Sorry to hear that, Eric.
It's a good thing you were able to diagnose it over the phone.
Kudos to you and the parents.


Oh yeah, and just incase all those frags don't recover in time for the swap, don't worry, I'll be happy to do you a favor and take them off your hands for a generous .10¢ on the dollar.

We really need to get a Vulture smilie on this board. lol

 

[Ding2daDong]

Sorry to hear about that Eric. Let me know if there is anything I could do to help out. When you back I will give you those frags again if they died.

-Matthew

 

[Lifes A Beach]

Sorry to hear about your corals but thank goodness your parents were there to let you know something wasn't right.

If I left my tank in the hands of my HUSBAND, I shudder to think what crap I'd come home to!!!!! lol

--Barbara

 

[loyalrogue]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11924198#post11924198 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pedromatic
If it was up to my wife to take care of my tanks... well, I shudder to think.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11924924#post11924924 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by prideprops
If I left my tank in the hands of my HUSBAND, I shudder to think what crap I'd come home to!!!!!

Wait a minute... are you two married??? :lol:

 

[racermike27]

That is a bummer Eric! I am glad you fixed it though. I always agree with the theory of having spares for everything that can go wrong LOL. I have about 4 spare halide bulbs and ballast for just such reasons.

 

[ReefWreak]

Lol it's all good. Thank you all for your support. They were mostly frags of the Rose Milli and the blue stag. It'll be okay though. I'm just wondering about the display corals how they're doing, but I suppose I'll survey the damage when I come home in 2 weeks. I'm hoping that it'll all survive, and it probably will, so no worries. I just told my dad to take out and throw out anything that starts growing algae in the coming week.

I guess this is a good segway into a lighting question. I used to have 2 xm 10k and 2 VHO super actinic. I thought it looked a bit flushed when the MH were on. What do you think about maybe 14K or something?

They are washed out. I had 14k, but they didn't get any growth. I'm going to order 10k Reeflux to replace that bulb (anyone know about that supposed groupbuy?)

 

[gasman059]

Eric sorry to hear about your problems. Most likely all of the critters in that area if they were under uv for a while will not make it.

In the past I've seen people use uv glass over their bulbs to protect against tt same problem even if they reduce par. Since u are away from your tank so much perhaps u should consider that as a safety measure.

 

[ReefWreak]

Yea I've been strongly considering putting glass on the Luminarc Minis both for protection for the bulb (3rd line of defense) as well as keeping the reflectors themselves clean of saltcreep.

Does anyone know if there is any glass that is particularly good at letting light through? It doesn't have to be UV glass, since it'll never break the SE envelope again, but it just has to output a ton of the input light. That's been the only reason so far for not getting a glass shielding, is that I've heard it reduces the ammount of light by a TON!.

At least the LA minis have slots for glass under them. The old parabolic had nothing, so I'd still be in the same situation as what happened this time, except then it would also not be able to be prevented after.

 

[pedromatic]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11925055#post11925055 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by loyalrogue
Wait a minute... are you two married??? :lol:

heh heh, no. I guess Barb and just both have spouses that do not share our level of interest in the hobby. I'm sure we're not the only ones. :wildone: :hammer:

 

[ReefWreak]

My dad took some pics this weekend, so I thought I would share the carnage... I'm sure a lot of it will come back, but a lot of it won't.

Kenya Tree and Birdsnest before:

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/EricDKlein/UVBurn/photo#5172124090876567762"><img src="http://lh5.google.com/EricDKlein/R8cTdSLwINI/AAAAAAAAAYM/EKGqSHCQR24/s800/DSC_0385.JPG" /></a>

And After:

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/EricDKlein/UVBurn/photo#5172123979207418002"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/EricDKlein/R8cTWyLwIJI/AAAAAAAAAXs/blYz2h3kj6U/s800/kenya%20and%20acros%20bleached.JPG" /></a>


<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/EricDKlein/UVBurn/photo#5172123987797352610"><img src="http://lh5.google.com/EricDKlein/R8cTXSLwIKI/AAAAAAAAAX0/FHLR8WLW5uQ/s800/birdsnest%20bleached.JPG" /></a>


Pic of area, including Bali Aquaculture:
Before:

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/EricDKlein/UVBurn/photo#5172124099466502370"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/EricDKlein/R8cTdyLwIOI/AAAAAAAAAYU/s7lw_aCJrfE/s800/DSC_0396.JPG" /></a>

After:

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/EricDKlein/UVBurn/photo#5172124017862123714"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/EricDKlein/R8cTZCLwIMI/AAAAAAAAAYE/I5CJm-a3nG0/s800/CIMG2146.JPG" /></a>

Oh well. Hopefully by the time I get home, most of the damage will be grown back and/or grown over. I'm hoping that this weekend he can take a FTS for me so I can compare it to older FTS.

 

[djfrankie]

Sorry to hear about the losses.

Nice to see your dad is there looking out for you man!

djfrankie

 

[NanoKat]

I'm a picture framer by trade and there are both glass and acrylic products that reduce the amount of uv rays by 99%. Don't know how they would do under high heat conditions like under a metal halide though. If anyone wants to experiment, I always have scrap pieces like ones that the uv coating is slightly scratched on. We can't use those on pictures cause it's too noticeable, but you could definitely use it in front of your halide bulb.

 

[ReefWreak]

I'd be happy to test them if they're glass. Only problem is cutting down to size, but I don't think it's too hard to cut them with one of those simple scraper breakers

 

[FleeVT]

Eric, that sucks man. Your tank was/is sweet. I feel for you. For any of your pieces that don't make it, the optimistic view is, "More real estate!".

I'm curious about the cause. Do you have SE or DE halides? You can use either with the Luminarcs, right? Did the bulb break on your SE or DE, or was it the shield on the DE that cracked?

 

[ReefWreak]

They were SE. There is a version of the LA minis that you can use DE with, and while these are Minis, they're SE only, however they do have little hinges almost for you to slide glass in front of to protect the reflector and bulb from water and salt. Definitely something that I'm considering more seriously.

Lee, I'm almost hoping that I lost that purple rim purple body yellow polyp monti cap, since it was taking up waaay too much room right in the top of my tank, but UV quickly dispensed of that, so it'll finally stop growing over my acros!

It was the glass UV protecting envelope around the arc tube in the SE bulb that cracked. I heard from someone else that they've seen XM 10k bulbs do that before, however I have never heard of that until then. Until I get home in a week, I won't know if it was a splash (should have left water on the reflector) or just the envelope cracking randomly. We shall see.

I've already got Reeflux 10ks on the way to replace these bulbs, and when I get home I'll look into getting some glass to cover it.

Is there a definite type of glass to use/get that allows the most penetration? It doesn't need to protect from UV, and hence loose more light than absolutely necessary, since I can't really even imagine that the glass popped for no reason.