My New Lights Sxxk

[spyro]

I recently replaced 4 of my SE MH 250 Watt Bulbs (10,000 K Aqualine Buske) with Double Ended bulbs from the same manufacturer. Since I have Blueline E-ballasts I simply replaced the fixtures and the bulbs and ran them off of the old E-Ballasats (according to Champion Lighting these ballasts will run any 250 W bulb).

My old SE bulbs were never troublesome, and always gave off a clear white light with not even a hint of yellow or green. In contrast, the new bulbs give of a strong green hue and seem to not be putting out their maximum lighting levels. I know there might be a burn in period but they have been running for almost 2 weeks and still I get ugly green lighting.

The reason I switched over was that I recently bought a Sunlight Supply MW E-Ballast and MH Pendant for my frag tank that is using the same bulbs and I was impressed with the increased frag coloration and growth...This Ballast/Bulb combo has worked great since day 1 always producing a bright clean white light.

I thought that all E-ballasts were pretty much the same, but obviously they are not.

Does any one have experience withe the Blueline E-ballast running Double Ended bulbs?

Why would the Sunlight Supply Ballast running the same bulb give me whiter and brighter lighting ?

Can I fix my situation or do I need to change my Ballasts ?

This weekend I will remove all of the bulbs from my display tank and test them with the Sunlight Supply ballast on my frag tank to see if it is the bulbs, the ballasts or the combination that is causing problems....PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN



Thanks,
Chuck Spyropulos

[Groove]

Tagging along

[spyro]

Just spoke with Champion Lighting. They said that the bulbs should run fine with the E-ballast and that they have not gotten any bad reports. They said to make sure that that the bulbs are "right side up". I guess the bulbs have a nipple that should be pointing up and not down. They also suggested the same thing I am going to try this weekend...plug each bulb into the frag tank fixture to see wether or not the bulbs are bad.

[spyro]

I swapped one of the display tank bulbs with the frag tank bulb and guess what ? Now my frag tank is green and the "good bulb" from the frag tank is burning bright white over my display tank.

Mystery solved: The bulbs are all bad...hard to believe they are all bad but I think that is the answer based on my experiment. I don't want to switch all of the bulbs to prove they are all bad but I will if Champion Lighting needs more proof.

[spyro]

Champion comes through again and overnighted me new bulbs...this time Ushios. They have to be better than the ABs.

[spyro]

UPDATE:

The Ushios are pure white...and much brighter than those green
AB's. If u run the Blueline E-Ballasts, u might not want to run the ABs, instead run the Ushios. Champion is taking back the"green AB's"...as usual great customer service !

Actually Champion recommended the Ushios over the AB's when I first ordered the bulbs and pendants, but I was hesitant since I had been using AB single endeds for the last 4 years.

[karl wagner]

I thought it might be the difference between 10K and 13K, but apparently not. Bum deal on the bad bulbs. They were all DE bulbs that were bad, right?

I got 2 bulbs a month ago that are more yellow than usual, but the softies LOVE it, and it's not all about me, it's all about growth and polyp extension.

[3_high_low]

Champion gets a bad rap sometimes. It was nice of them to make good for you. I've dealt with other on-line vendors that made me deal directly with Aquamedic when I had a problem with an AB lamps.

[Armando]

I just found out I also got one of these bad bulbs. It has been 4 weeks and it's greenish. Sux.

[Heavydc2]

Its cool that champions customer service has been so good ot fix issues like that, they should be commended for that.