Breaking in new bulbs

[RichV]

What is the best way to break in new MH bulbs?

Thanks, Rich

 

[soyadrink]

Fire it up and just let it do its thing
Any bulbs I ever had i just fired up and let it run the regular times. All they did is change a little bit in color but thats it.

 

[RichV]

I killed a bunch of things the last time when I tried to shorten the amount of "on" time with the intention of gradually increasing it.

 

[treehugger]

I just switched all 3 of my 250w mh bulbs from 14k to 20k radiums two weeks ago. Cleaned all the reflectors, put in the new bulbs and ran them for the same amount of time as the old bulbs. The corals were a bit shocked for the first couple of days but seem to be doing just fine. If you want to be on the safe side, you can always just change one bulb at a time and space them out a couple of weeks. Good luck

 

[danno14]

If you have the ability to raise your lights and lower them gradually (over 2-3 weeks?), it may help you to achieve what you are searching for.
D

 

[RichV]

I thought there was some kind of technique using a screen between the bulb and water that cut down on the light and after a certain amount of time it is removed.

 

[ac7av]

I think any change is still going to cause a reaction. I just cleaned my fixture and lenses and it was like I put new bulbs in the tank. Everything freaked out but was fine in a week. Running the screen and removing it will cause this to happen twice, once with the new lights and again with the removal of the screen. If you have more then one light do them one at a time like treehugger said. You wont shock the entire system at once, that may help.

 

[dnjan]

If you have the ability to raise your lights and lower them gradually (over 2-3 weeks?), it may help you to achieve what you are searching for.
D

If you have decent reflectors, the height above the water will have practically no effect.
I would just be careful to not replace all MH bulbs at the same time.

 

[soyadrink]

I think the technique you're talking about is stacking up egg crate and removing a layer every once in a while

 

[noonesname124]

I thought there was some kind of technique using a screen between the bulb and water that cut down on the light and after a certain amount of time it is removed.

you dont need that unless you are upgrading from PC's to MH

 

[danno14]

If you have decent reflectors, the height above the water will have practically no effect.

I disagree-
If you look at dispersion rates of reflective materials (mirrored, specular, white paint, etc.) you will see there is a difference.... regardless of reflector design. If the opposite were true, a reflector 6' above the water would have the same effect as one 6" above.....Physics is too ordered to be fooled that easily (I wish!)