T5 burn-in and tank acclimation

[mcarroll]

Why waste the money on a "junk" fixture and why waste the first 50 hours of light lighting up something other than your tank?

If you can't raise the fixture, you simply shorten the photo-period to 3-4 hours per day and then once a week or so you take a step back toward the full photoperiod by adding an hour, for example.

 

[DLHDesign]

Sounds like you should really invest in an appropriate sized frag tank to go under that fixture that you are going to use to burn in the new bulbs with! Isn't that how this hobby works?

I've thought of that, yeah. ;-)

Challenge is that any other tanks I get have to go either in my office (where floor space just doesn't exist as it's also the spare bedroom; also - it's on the other side of the house) or else in the garage. I'm okay with a frag tank being in the garage conceptually, but the problem there is that the garage gets hot - really hot - in the summer. I hooked up an attic fan a while back, but it still gets above 100F. So I would first need to insulate the garage and then have a plan to chill it down in the summer (and potentially heat it up in the winter). Running HVAC ducting into the garage is possible, but I'm not sure I like the idea of that... Plus, selling my wife on the idea of another tank just doesn't appeal to me right now (I like sleeping in my bed, in other words). ;-)

 

[DLHDesign]

If you can't raise the fixture, you simply shorten the photo-period to 3-4 hours per day and then once a week or so you take a step back toward the full photoperiod by adding an hour, for example.

Thank you for the suggestion and your attempt to keep things simple and cost effective, but I got a dimmable ballast so that I could:
- Ramp the bulbs up and down with (or counter to) my LED's (which will still be in use)
- Ramp them up/down for sunrise/sunset
- Mount the canopy in an aesthetically pleasing location above the tank (which is highly visible in our main living space) and still have the ability to control the light I apply

Given the expected lifetime of a standard T5 bulb, I don't really feel that wasting 50 hours of it's life is that high of a cost to pay - certainly well worth the time/effort/headache savings of not having to be playing with whatever programming I use to control the lights (eg Apex or the like) every time one goes out. ~$30 for a single bulb fixture doesn't even show up as a blip on the budget for this tank, honestly. :-\

 

[mcarroll]

Wow.

If your fears are even half-way justified... I'd be having second thoughts about any automation system that made a maneuver like this anything more than child's play. It's just setting them to manual mode/100% and changing a timer.

From an ATI manual I found:

It is important to ‘burn in’ any new tubes used with this pendant. This is to ensure they are fully functioning prior to activating the dimming function.
After fitting any new tubes both channels must be set in manual mode for the tubes to operate at 100% brightness for a minimum of 60 hours.

Failure to do this may cause problems in dimming down to a low % and may affect programmed channels.​

I'm as money- and time-strapped as anyone, but this solution to burn-in has worked for me and countless other reefers going back to the beginning of the use of high-powered lighting.....it's certainly not going out of your way like you paint it. And it's only for 50 hours or whatever, then you're back to normal.

Have no fear to use your bulbs during the burn-in period!

(You might also consider that some folks pay no mind at all to the burn-in warning.....doesn't seemed to have ruined anyone's reef. One example with lots of folks chiming in: http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?712058-ati-dimmable-new-tube-burn-in-time)