melev

One of the metal halide ballasts became problematic this week. I noticed about a month ago that it was occasionally not lighting the bulb on the left end of the reef, but with a little tinkering it resumed as expected. By tinkering, what I mean is taking down the ballast, cord, socket and bulb and hauling all of that into the kitchen to test it in a different outlet, and naturally it turned on just like when you take your car to the mechanic and everything works perfectly.

Last week, it did it again, and for a couple of days it waited on me to go through that annoying routine. However, it turned out the bulb wouldn't ignite. Fortunately, I'd purchased new ones and had one ready to replace that instant. I thought everything was good once more. Earlier this week, the bulb would light up but within a few minutes it would shut off and not fire again. The ballast was hot to the touch, so it was on. The reset fuse didn't affect anything when depressed. I contacted Reefbrite and explained what was going on, and a new 400w ballast will be here Monday. I'll send the old one back since it is only 15 months old, but I think I may just purchase one more to have on hand for the future.

In the meantime, that end of the reef was without light for days and days. Being the hoarder I am, I was able to locate an older 250w ballast and a used 250w Twinarc bulb to run over that section for a few days and got that installed yesterday. It's dimmer than the rest of the lighting, but it's good enough for now.

Here's a pretty picture from today, just because.