Help - PFO MH, what did I buy?

[desertdawg]

This weekend I bought a MH setup from a friend for a decent price, I'm just not sure what I bought.
Tank is 120 (60x18x24deep) old lighting = 2 - 65w pc 10K and 65w 420
Whats new:
Ballast sticker says, PFO, AQ2-250HQI-120V 5.5 x 2 amps
Pendants are PFO 14" x 11"
Bulbs are double ended with no markings or stamping on them. About 8.5" long
He said they are 10K 400W bulbs ???
One Pendant is missing the glass, is this bad ?
Tank water is now yellow/brown, while the carpet and walls are all washed out in white light...
The bulbs are about 18" above the water, lights have been on for 3 hours and the birdsnest is barely open, monti is completely closed, all but one of the zoo's are all closed....
Help !

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by Desertdawg
http:///forum/post/3260852
This weekend I bought a MH setup from a friend for a decent price, I'm just not sure what I bought.
Tank is 120 (60x18x24deep) old lighting = 2 - 65w pc 10K and 65w 420
Whats new:
Ballast sticker says, PFO, AQ2-250HQI-120V 5.5 x 2 amps
Pendants are PFO 14" x 11"
Bulbs are double ended with no markings or stamping on them. About 8.5" long
He said they are 10K 400W bulbs ???
One Pendant is missing the glass, is this bad ?
Tank water is now yellow/brown, while the carpet and walls are all washed out in white light...
The bulbs are about 18" above the water, lights have been on for 3 hours and the birdsnest is barely open, monti is completely closed, all but one of the zoo's are all closed....
Help !

I am no expert on lights ...It should say somewhere on the lighting unit what the watts are.
As for the closed coral…they need to adjust to the new light. After one or two days you should see a little improvement.
The double ended bulbs are not familiar to me, but I think that is a newer type of MH unit. The old ones have mogul bases and were huge…Like mine.
P.S.
If the unit had a glass, I would replace the glass.

 

[desertdawg]

Thanks, what brand bulb do you think puts out the best light? I don't have the option to add actinic so I'm probably going to go with 20K.
Do you know if the glass should be UV coated or is the glass on MH lights just regular glass?

 

[desertdawg]

No other help?

 

[scsinet]

Well it's not a 400w fixture, it's a 250w, the model number gives that much away. If you want to be absolutely sure, open the ballast enclosure and look at the ballasts inside. There should be a label on them that tells you.
Yes, you must replace the glass. Double Ended halides require the UV sheild. I think ordinary glass should do, but personally, I'd have a glass shop make you a piece of tempered glass identical to the other one (in thickness). It shouldn't cost much.
As for what type of lamp... in the 250w range, I'm partial to the Radium lamps, but honestly lamps are a personal choice. Any reputable manufacturer such as Ushio, Radium, Sunburst, etc will all work, from a reputable dealer. Stay away from ---- lamps. You must use 250w lamps but you can use any color temperature (10K, 14K, 20K, etc). I personally have refined my lighting choice over several years of lamp changes, until I found what I liked.

 

[desertdawg]

I figured the ballast was 250, but the guy said the bulbs were 400, thats why I was confused...
Point me in the right direction for new bulbs, I don't have the option to add actinic so using just the 250w MH what brand/temp do you suggest I try? I've read Radium or Phoenix are more blue

 

[scsinet]

Well I must again reiterate that lamps are a personal choice.
I have settled on Radium 20K. I use single ended lamps, I am not sure if the double ended lamps are as nice as the single ended. 20K may look too blue to you.
As a starting point, I'd look at the 14-15K lamps. Without actinics, 10K would look too yellow IMO. 14-15 is a nice balance between the blue 20K and the yellow 10s. Run with these for a year, and you can decide whether you want to go up or down on the next lamp change.
Radium, Ushio, Sunburst, Phoenix, are all good lamps. I'd stay away from Hamilton and XM. XM makes some nice lamps, but there are too many bad ones around to risk it for a first time lamp buy. Hamilton does not make any good lamps IMO.

 

[desertdawg]

Cool, thanks for the info.
I shut one side down just now, and centered the other pendant over the tank. Every coral looks bad, the monti is bleach white on all the upper facing surfaces and no pylops are open on it. All of the zoa's are closed up tight, the birdsnest is even closed now and not looking happy.
The Fish all seem to hang out low and just sit there, feeding time frenzy was just blah tonight???
All I did was change lights!

 

[scsinet]

It can take a while for livestock to adjust. Some people do schemes to gradually introduce new lighting, but I've personally found that after a couple days they get adjusted and are just fine.

 

[desertdawg]

Originally Posted by SCSInet
http:///forum/post/3261086
Yes, you must replace the glass. Double Ended halides require the UV sheild. I think ordinary glass should do, but personally, I'd have a glass shop make you a piece of tempered glass identical to the other one (in thickness). It shouldn't cost much.
We'll I ran that pendant for a day and I think I cooked my tank some, lost a yellow tang and the water levels are now all wacky,
Calc, 450
dKH 107-115 ppm
Phosphate 6
nitrates 15 (never been over 7)
ammo 2
sg 1.023
I took down the one pendant after I read your comment above, but I had already run it for 2 days, (4hr then 6hr).
Just how bad did the ultraviolet rays cook everything?
I'm taking steps now to try to correct the damage, cleaned scrubber, new carbon a half dose of kent dKH buffer. getting some water ready to change out tonight if things don't start to improve...

 

[scsinet]

Honestly I'm not sure. I've never witnessed first hand or otherwise the effects of running an exposed DE above a tank.
Your levels are out of whack because of livestock loss. Since your nitrates are rising, that means your biological filter is doing it's job. Ammonia is incredibly high. I'd change what water you can as fast as possible. At least put some Prime or ammo-lock, etc in the water if you have it to keep the ammonia from burning the gills of your other fish.
Before we blame this conclsively on the pendant, how high did you have it above the water?

 

[desertdawg]

Pendants were 18 inches above the water.
See if this helps get an explanation.
Here's and example of the shrooms I had growing and the color on the rocks.

And now just 3 days after the new lights. Shrroms are crumbled up and all the coraline is bleached.

Here's the monti growing and blooming everyday! Also the leather on the right side of the rock.

And today... All upper surfaced are bleached, and the leather is pure white in front!

Yellow tang dead, long nose butterfly dead, here's 2 pictures of the powder blue.
Left side still looks almost normal.

Left side is all cooked looking and his eye is cloudy.

All I can say is he was hiding in a hole with the left side facing the light without the glass.
The Desjardini is hiding now and his color seems all washed out, the Mata is the most active but across his back it almost looks like its pealing some. the 2 clowns and all the critters seem to be fine.
Tonight's levels.
Calc, 460
dKH 155 ppm
Phosphate 9
nitrates 10
ammo 1
sg 1.023
So things are recovering as quickly as the went downhill... I ran the one good MH light today for 3 hours then shut it off and just used a regular florescent light to see things....
Any other suggestions ????? This is our second major fish loss in a year, it's sort of disheartening.

 

[jackri]

I would not run the lights without glass. What was the temperature of your tank and what is it now? The other thing I thought of is if you had 400w bulbs in a 250w fixture. My icecap pendant took 250w or 400w bulbs (you could stretch the socket out) and if you are running 400w bulbs with a 250w ballast that could be doing some funky things.
This whole thing seems really odd to me and really makes me wonder what's going on as you really shouldn't be having these problems unless it's temp, UV, wrong bulbs, or just that bad of shock (which shouldn't be IMO).

 

[desertdawg]

The bulbs have no markings on them at all, they are 8.5 inches lontg and are double ended.
The water temp before and after has been between 76 and 80.

 

[jackri]

I'd measure my 250w bulbs for you if I was at home right now.

 

[desertdawg]

Well someone is going to have to measure bulbs for me before I order some, plus I have a guy ordering me some new tempered glass...
Now if things would just quit dying!

 

[jackri]

Here is the spec sheet off of Ushio's website for their double ended 250w bulbs
http://www.ushio.com/files/specs/Aqualite.pdf
Based on that it's 139mm --- which if the google search and my math are correct is 5.4 inches (not counting the socket ends). These are the bulbs I run and fit in my 250w canopy (love the 20k's btw and just switched from phoenix 14k's).
So..... if it is true you're running 400w bulbs with 250w ballasts -- which is a big NO NO.... this could be the root of your problems.
Now that being said, you can redo the math and look at the spec sheet yourself but I would stop using the new light set up. You may also have 400w pendants with 250w ballasts -- I really don't know what you have but I do know you shouldn't be mix and mis-matching.
I'm not saying this is the case but if it is, it would explain a lot.

 

[desertdawg]

Here's whats on the ballast box thingy...

And I couldn't get the tape measure in there and take the picture, but here's what the bulbs look like.

 

[jackri]

If you look at the data sheet and how they measure the bulb I think you'll find it is a 250w measurement. Remember never to touch the bulb with your fingers (oils from your fingers are bad).
I'm puzzled why your live stock is taking such a huge hit on only changing the lights. I had no problems going from PC lighting to my 716w of lighting (t5's and 2 - 250w) and I never really cut the lighting down at first. Definately keep us posted on whats happening.

 

[desertdawg]

I shouldn't have put the tape measure there because it's misleading, I measured end to end including the socket ends to get 8.5, the ends are only about half an inch or so each so the glass bulb part is about 7.5 inches. I'll get a better picture tonight if needed.
I think everything took a big hit because I ran one of the pendants for about 10 hours over 2 days without a tempered glass lens in the pendant shielding the uv rays, which probably explains why it was taking my eyes a minute to adjust after walking away from the tank with them on...