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I have 4 250wattHQI lamps....2 on HQI, 2 on icecaps...paired up on 2 tanks. I removed one lamp from each and put in a new 10,000K to see how much of a difference there would be after burning for a year vs. a brand new one. The results prompted me to then put back in the bulb I had just taken out, and put the new bulb on the other ballast by swapping ballast plugs (to see if both bulbs had the same result both times). The bulbs run on the icecaps for 1 year had a different spectrum than brand new, and the ones run on the HQI had not changed as much. Im beginning to think that if a bulb is designed to run on HQI, run it on HQI! If its designed to run on magnetic, only then is electronic a suitable substitute...just an observation.
As for getting the bulbs out...I did resort to bending a wire behind and around the lamp at each end where the glass meets ceramic, and then pulling the wires...but while this did not dent the reflector like my hand did, and required much less force...the bulb broke because all of the force applied to such a small area.
There has to be an easier way....
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