problem with light bulbs...

senos

senos

90 Gal Marine
Nov 18, 2005
52
0
0
Toronto, Canada
i have an industrial 48" light fixture and ballast. It works fine with two T12 35 or 40 watt white bulbs, but when i try to put a T12 Actinic bulb in, neither of the bulbs fire up bright. they just flicker very dim. Any ideas as to why? thanks guy

-Dave
 
Have you tried more than one actinic bulb? May be that you got a bad one. I sometimes have problems trying to fire T8s with a balleast that works for T12s, but T12s haven't given me trouble. So far.
 
well I tested the Actinic at the fish store before I bought it. They have a test ballast set up in the store. It fired up fine. And i didnt drop it bringing it home or anything. Its weird... maybe i should go get a more powerful ballast? It runs two F40T12 home-use bulbs just fine, but when i drop the F40T12 actinic bulb, it wont fire up. weird isn't it? Its only temporary until I get a nice compact fluorescent setup, but Id like it to work in the meantime for the nice actinic spectrum.
 
Dunno. If the ballast is rated for 40 watt T12s, then it should fire the actinic. Have you tried the actinic with both of your daylight bulbs?
 
Ya the Ballast can run two regular F40T12 daylight bulbs... thats what is running right now over my tank. But as soon as I ad the actinic, neither of the bulbs work. I tried mixing many different ones with the actinic, and nothing :(
 
It funny you post this, I thought It was just my rigging that was messed up...
I got a bunch of free commercial ballast's that power 4 48inchers. when I added my actinics they wouldnt all fire either... I've got them to fire once, but couldn't replicate it. I switch bulbs arround and only get 2 to work at a time so I run one daylight and one actinic... not sure if its the wiring (series vs parrallel etc)

Hopefully we have an electrician that will jump in and help...

-LS
 
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