T5 bulb lifespan???

[kattz]

People, I gave you my opinion based on my experience, which is lengthy. I have never seen diminished coral growth, an increase in algae, etc. because of the bulbs getting older. MH, yes. T5HO, not in MY experience.

This is not an argument; if you see/feel/want to burn your bulbs in and you have the ability to do so, then rock on! Sheesh, it's not like I'm going to come over to your house and say "neener, neener" if you burn in the bulbs.

Kev

 

[ATI North America]

No reason to turn off the ramp feature. Burn-in is not required.

Kev

Most automotive manuals say to change the oil every 7500 miles and I don't do that either. It's difficult for typical users to do the burn in without a separate fixture, and my experience says, based on my results, it's not needed. If you can do the burn in, no worries.

My experience is that, over the course of many bulbs and changes, it makes no difference to PAR. The first time I used my ATI Sunpower I did the 50 hr burn in. I measured the PAR with the new bulbs before burning in and after the 50 hours - no difference. After 1 yr, I changed my bulbs, recording the PAR at the end of the year. It was a less than 2% change. For the next set of bulbs, I eliminated the burn-in and just started them up in the program. The PAR at the beginning and at the end of the 2nd year of bulb life, there was no difference over the 1-2% drop already seen in the first round of bulbs that had a burn-in cycle. Changing one bulb every 5-7 days, yes, that's sound advice. Burn in, you have a choice.

Before breaking it down to move, I checked the PAR of my frag tank, which had 4 year old 24" ATI bulbs in a ATI Sunpower fixture running the same program as my main tank. They were four years old and the total PAR had dropped 3% over brand new bulbs with no burn in time.

Edit: I have never had a bulb fail early due to no burn-in, either...

Kev

I could not disagree with this information more. We hear of countless people who have premature bulb failure, first question we ask is if it is a dimmable fixture. Failure to season your bulbs will also void the 30 day failure to fire guarantee on our lamps.

Lamp burn in is 100% critical not only for lifespan but also for spectrum.

Lower intensity does more damage, so if you for example run it at 30% all day it will likely fail in days to weeks. Running it at 80-100% may not fail at all. The length of time at low intensities is what does the damage.

Please people, burn in your T5's if you have a dimmable fixture it DOES matter.

 

[KJ]

When I was running t5s I replaced them every year

 

[DSC reef]

I'm looking forward to a spectrum test to see how much spectrum is really lost over the course of a year. I've always changed my bulbs 12-13 months though.

 

[john.m.cole3]

I got the dimmable fixture for the built in controller and the single power cord. I run my lights at 100%, not utilizing the ramping capabilities. It does take a minute to ramp up/down inevitably due to the nature of programming the light. I replace 1 bulb every week when it's bulb change season. Is this acceptable practice?

 

[cilyjr]

Dude i litterally bought another powermodule, 1 as a backup, and 2 just to burn bulbs in. You could also get a 30 dollar homedepot fixture to hardwire for bulb burnin

What a good idea.

 

[ATI North America]

What a good idea.

Just be sure its High Output (the proper wattage) or you may fail to season your bulbs properly. I think a ballast and some end caps screwed to a 2x4 is a cheaper route myself.