fender
Active Member
As an FYI.
It appears there is a problem with Coralvue bulbs running on standard magnetic ballasts. In December I bought a 10K 400w Coralvue that lasted about 5 weeks before it began having trouble firing. I thought the problem was with the ballast so I replaced it - the problem persisted so I contacted the vendor and the manufacturer. The vendor replaced the bulb free of charge and paid for shipping
. The manufacturer told me if I had any future problems to contact them.
Well two days ago the problem started happening again. Seems about 5-6 weeks is about all I get out of these bulbs before the ignitor goes bad. I contacted the manufacturer (Coralvue) this morning but haven't gotten a response back yet. After doing a little research it seems there was a known ignitor problem, but this was supposedly fixed. The second bulb did look slightly different from the first. Several online vendors are now recommending only E-ballasts or Pulse for these bulbs.
These bulbs have been a great deal and provide excellent output and color, hopefully they will get this taken care of.
I may wind up buying an XM as a replacement/backup to keep on hand as my tank has been sitting under VHO actinics only for the past couple days.
NOTE: this problem only appears to exist on standard ballasts - I haven't heard of any problems on other ballast types.
As soon as I find out more I'll post again.
It appears there is a problem with Coralvue bulbs running on standard magnetic ballasts. In December I bought a 10K 400w Coralvue that lasted about 5 weeks before it began having trouble firing. I thought the problem was with the ballast so I replaced it - the problem persisted so I contacted the vendor and the manufacturer. The vendor replaced the bulb free of charge and paid for shipping
. The manufacturer told me if I had any future problems to contact them. Well two days ago the problem started happening again. Seems about 5-6 weeks is about all I get out of these bulbs before the ignitor goes bad. I contacted the manufacturer (Coralvue) this morning but haven't gotten a response back yet. After doing a little research it seems there was a known ignitor problem, but this was supposedly fixed. The second bulb did look slightly different from the first. Several online vendors are now recommending only E-ballasts or Pulse for these bulbs.
These bulbs have been a great deal and provide excellent output and color, hopefully they will get this taken care of.
I may wind up buying an XM as a replacement/backup to keep on hand as my tank has been sitting under VHO actinics only for the past couple days.
NOTE: this problem only appears to exist on standard ballasts - I haven't heard of any problems on other ballast types.
As soon as I find out more I'll post again.
