In Your Experience How Often Do Ballasts Go Bad?

[Wy Renegade]

Think I lost my ballast for the PC lights on my coralife MH/PC light. I've lost a number of ballasts on PC lights in under two years; both Current and Coralife. Curious as to other's experience with this.

 

[CoralBandit]

I dont have any experience with PC's but I think you can get their ballasts at home depot

 

[BroncosZOA]

Ballast

I had a ballast go on a aquatinics fixture.

I drove from NJ to CT and had the ballast replaced that day. I was lucky to be off from work.



I have never in my experience besides that lost a ballast.

You might wanna check your electrical.

 

[EliteReefs]

i have lost a few PC ballast over the years but. matter a fact they were also current ballast.

with that said however otehr then those few i have never lost another type of ballast. i have a few MH ballast that are 10 plus years old and i have no coublt that is i fired them up right now they would work just fine. . unless its an electronic ballast there is not really anything that can go wrong assuming its wired correctly

 

[Troylee]

get a workhorse from home depot there great ballast and last longer than the cheap ones that come with fixtures...

 

[MitchReef]

I had a stinking Coralvue 175W MH die after just 15 months! Made me quite angry. Never had another ballast failure in over 20 years in the hobby.

 

[Wy Renegade]

get a workhorse from home depot there great ballast and last longer than the cheap ones that come with fixtures...

How do you match them up - do they have a rating on them somewhere? For example, I need one for two 65 watt PCs.

thanks for the input guys, looks like I've got a few more than my fair share of the bad ones.

 

[MitchReef]

Go to the fulham (manufacturer) dot com website and on the right side there is a place to enter the bulbs you are using and it gives you the ballast and wiring diagram needed to properly connect them. Easy as falling off a log.

 

[tc269]

what about like the blue wave 3 MH ballast i have had mine for over a year and wondering if its going to die soon or have a long life ahead of it??

 

[MitchReef]

I never haerd any ill report on blue waves. Like I said, been at this stuff since 86 and the only one to actually die on me was the Coralvue 175.

 

[Wy Renegade]

Go to the fulham (manufacturer) dot com website and on the right side there is a place to enter the bulbs you are using and it gives you the ballast and wiring diagram needed to properly connect them. Easy as falling off a log.

Cool, thank you.

 

[MitchReef]

I was actually just on the site last night hooking up some lighting for my frag tank project. They make it easy.