What to do, what to do?

[brettandlyndi]

Hi all,

I've got a 55g mixed reef, with 452 watts of PC lighting. Well, I'm at sort of fork in the road in regards to my lighting. It's coming time for me to replace my PC bulbs, and was planning on buying all new bulbs in about a month, when I get some b-day money. But wouldn't you know it, my 96 watt, 10000k bulb burnt out the other day. I really don't want to buy one bulb now, and 5 others in a month, I wanted all the bulbs to be purchased at the same time and installed at the same time. So far, all of my corals seem just fine with the drop in wattage, do you think it would be risky to not buy a bulb right now and wait a month, or should I hurry and replace the burnt out bulb?

 

[Aaron M.]

You will probably be alright for a month or so.

How long has it been since you last replaced the bulbs, especially the one that burned out? It must be awhile because I've never actually had one burn out since it's best to replace them every 6-7 months.

 

[brettandlyndi]

The one that burned out had been running almost 10 months. I should have replaced them a while back, but kept putting it off and putting it off.

 

[Entropy]

I think you will be fine. You only lost 1/6th of your lighting. I would me more concerned about your plan to replace all your bulbs at once. That is pretty dangerous IMO. I would replace them two at a time, or even better one at a time every two months. You can buy them all at once, but try to stagger them so that you don't replace all wasted bulbs with brand new bulbs. Best case your old bulbs are probably 20% or more down on light, so replacing them with new bulbs could be a shock for your corals.

 

[brettandlyndi]

Thanks Entropy, I didn't even think about that aspect of the lighting. It sounds like it would be a lot better to replace them slowly.