• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

Did you know?

Edwardw771

Edwardw771

NJRC Member
You can't use a Double Ended MH light without the glass.
I didn't know that. I dropped the glass, it broke into a thousand pieces.
Then I was like it will be ok, let me put it over this frag tank with 20 or so corals under it. I come back the next day from work and they are all white.
Come to find out the glass blocks the UV rays. I cook them. Damn. I hate when I kills stuff. It was digis and some zoas that I have millions of but still. I feel guilty killing this stuff. thought I would post so others can learn from my ignorence.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Sadly, I did know that. I don't have DE bulbs so I've never seen the effects first hand. WOW.I can't believe it happened so fast that you scortched them in a day. That's amazing. Sad, but amazing.

Sorry for your losses!
 
D

DaveK

Yes, double ended MH do need to be run behind glass. I even prefer to run single ended bulbs that way, but that's not so critical.

The replacement glass must be heat resistant. If you can't get it locally, you can use Robax glass. You can get it here, custom cut to your specs- (offsite link) - http://www.robaxglass.com/index2.htm

One work of warning, Robax glass is very expensive, about 50 to 75 cents per square inch. depending upon thickness.
 
M

mladencovic

Worse then that is that I DID know that and I used the Coralife Aqualight for 6 months without realizing that their design is FLAWED! (http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewitem.asp?idproduct=ES53601)

Only when I replaced the buld with the new Ushio bulb, I realized that the bulb is shielded only 50% by a semi-cylindrical glass shield. Like an idiot, I still used it as it was with only a few hours of "aclimation" and when I turned it on for a whole day it killed everything beneath. I fixed the problem by using shielding glass from a couple of small reflectors (total 15$) from Home Depot. Before you try this, be warned that that was tempered glass and can't be cut.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top