Pet Forum / Aquaria / Marine Reef / August 2007

Well y'all are going to be shocked when I tell you
how old my 400w MH light bulbs were when I pulled
them out :-)

With the way things have been going over the years,
my reef tank has been badly neglected, especially in
the last 8 months.

The corals have been suffering badly, and I finally
changed the bulbs with some other used bulbs that
have about 4 months of use on them. I forgot to date
those bulbs. But I dated them with a reinstall date
when I put them in today.

For the old bulbs, one was over 5 years old, and the
other was 5 months short of 4 years of use. That's
insane. The 4 year old bulb didn't come out in one
piece.

hmmm wonder why the corals weren't doing well :-)

A good way to date mh bulbs is with white-out. The
pen styles work the easiest. If you use a black
marker, the ink will burn off, and there will be
nothing left. The white-out will produce a burnt
plastic smell when you first fire up the bulb, but
the remaining ingredients will last indefinitely,
but put the writing near the base, where you won't
rub it off when taking the bulb out, because it will
rub off easily after being baked.

PS: if you are taking a bulb out, and it does not
want to move easily, don't twist it back and forth
without making sure that the base is moving with the
bulb :-) Silly me, I was trying to work it loose.
Yea I worked it loose alright :-)

Wayne Sallee
Webmaster@LeesburgNazarene.org