Reef nutrition

A broken bulb

Just want to share what a broken bulb can do to your coral.
Last Friday when I got home (around 7:00PM) from work, I saw pieces of glass on my rockwork. I realized what heppened and soon I turned off that particular MH. A closer inspection after that reveal that most of SPS underneath it bleached. My MH is set for 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM, so the bulb must be on without the glass for 2 hours max. The next day, most of the SPS under that bulb went RTN. I lost approx 10 or so frags. The good thing is that under this MH are only frags (not colony size yet) and this can be worst if I detect it later. Water must got into the bulb somehow.
I have heard this kind of story before and now I have the first hand experience. I can see how UV can ruin your coral in a short period of exposure.
 
Sop the outer glass UV shield broke, not the bulb itself? The title is miss leading :) FWIW it can take mere minutes in some cases :(
 
Gresh,
Sorry, it was not clear. My bulb is SE Radium 250 watts. The bulb itself broke, but as you know for SE bulb the glass itself on the bulb is function as UV shield.
 
Sorry about that Roy, at least it wasn't worst though. I know someone that crashed their whole system when something similar happened. Bulb broke over the frag tank (frag and display connected), everything in the frag tank started to rtn. Which in turn cause the system to start crashing and almost everything in the display went as well. For this reason I feel everyone even with SE bulbs should run a glass sheild (with UV protection). I would if I were running a SE MH bulb.
 
Radiolunatic said:
Gresh,
Sorry, it was not clear. My bulb is SE Radium 250 watts. The bulb itself broke, but as you know for SE bulb the glass itself on the bulb is function as UV shield.


The bulb is what makes the light, if it broke no light could be made ;)

The outer glass is simply a UV shield. I know it's splitting hairs but it's accurate :)
 
iani said:
Sorry about that Roy, at least it wasn't worst though. I know someone that crashed their whole system when something similar happened. Bulb broke over the frag tank (frag and display connected), everything in the frag tank started to rtn. Which in turn cause the system to start crashing and almost everything in the display went as well. For this reason I feel everyone even with SE bulbs should run a glass sheild (with UV protection). I would if I were running a SE MH bulb.

AT one of the CFM's one of the vendors positioned his clamp on DE set-up a bit askew and it allowed just a bit of non UV shielded light to leak. Every coral bleached in a very short time :(

It's very rare a SE bulb does that. Usually what happens is some water splashes on it or you try to unscrew the bulb by grabbing the shield (and the mogul is fused). You do loose both PAR and wave lengths using a shield though :(
 
I had a crack occur in a SE bulb a while back, bulb still worked so silly me said "well hell I'll still use it...." that wasn't the brightest of moves...
 
GreshamH said:
Radiolunatic said:
Gresh,
Sorry, it was not clear. My bulb is SE Radium 250 watts. The bulb itself broke, but as you know for SE bulb the glass itself on the bulb is function as UV shield.


The bulb is what makes the light, if it broke no light could be made ;)

The outer glass is simply a UV shield. I know it's splitting hairs but it's accurate :)
Gresh, thanks for clarifying that. We do need to learn to communicate accurately.
 
GreshamH said:
iani said:
Sorry about that Roy, at least it wasn't worst though. I know someone that crashed their whole system when something similar happened. Bulb broke over the frag tank (frag and display connected), everything in the frag tank started to rtn. Which in turn cause the system to start crashing and almost everything in the display went as well. For this reason I feel everyone even with SE bulbs should run a glass sheild (with UV protection). I would if I were running a SE MH bulb.

AT one of the CFM's one of the vendors positioned his clamp on DE set-up a bit askew and it allowed just a bit of non UV shielded light to leak. Every coral bleached in a very short time :(

It's very rare a SE bulb does that. Usually what happens is some water splashes on it or you try to unscrew the bulb by grabbing the shield (and the mogul is fused). You do loose both PAR and wave lengths using a shield though :(

Ian,
As Gresham said, I did not have glass shield in my luminarc because I do not want to loose some PAR, but now I have to re-think about that due to this incident. Maybe I should raise the luminarc a bit. The good thing is that this incident did not happen when I was travelling. As I said it could have been worse.
 
Just look at this in a positive light, all those dead corals that were under your bulb now just becomes space for new corals to place! BAYMAC is coming up soon after all :D
 
All, thanks. At this time, I do not even want to think or calculate what the actual damage. Maybe this weekend. Most of the frag are replacable, I think. We'll see.
 
Sorry to hear about what happened Roy. Let me know what you lost, I'll see if i have it or could get it or if you need other frags. You're always welcome on what ever in my tank.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Just look at this in a positive light, all those dead corals that were under your bulb now just becomes space for new corals to place! BAYMAC is coming up soon after all :D
I agree. However, some of the lost are also frags that I was preparing for BAYMAC's BAR booth, such as Hawkins, etc. Hawkins are a bit sensitive to frag to me, so I was thinking to let it encrusted a bit. Oh well.
 
reefstud said:
Roy,

Sorry to hear about your loss, it's a good thing you found out sooner than later
Thanks.
As you said, it can be worst. I am actually greatful, believe it or not. Those frags are replacable. First I need to get 250 watts radium, before start getting a replacement.
 
drdoolittle said:
Sorry to hear about what happened Roy. Let me know what you lost, I'll see if i have it or could get it or if you need other frags. You're always welcome on what ever in my tank.
Thanks, Ed. There will always be something happen in this hobby. Therfore sharing is always a great think as insurance. Good thing that BAR has DBTC as one of the vehicle for that. I will PM you later.
 
I may actually have that Bulb (NEB) in my backroom. I'll look tonight when I get home :)
 
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