Atinic Lifespan
 

Whats the life span of a 40watt atinic ?

What happens when they loose their oomph ?

I know algae breaks occur when MH's are old, but what about these ?

Brent

reply
 

I've never hear of anyonee ever complain about algae blooms from an old actinic. Because they are generally used as supplimental lighting people don't replace them as often, and don't really pay as much attention to them.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but when a bulb gets older it looses its intensity in the designated spectrum for that bulb. In a sense the higher wavelengths take over and the bulb "yellows". Its the higher wavelength (green, yellow and red) spectrums that hair algae and other diatoms enjoy so they begin to thrive as the bulbs age.

How much a bulb will yellow? I don't know, but an actinic (420-480Nm) would have a long way to go to emit any kind of yellow spectrum

Seeing how they a generally for color, I run them till they burn out myself.