Refugium Light- 9W Power Compact

[Oscar]

My Cad39 comes with a refugium light with a thumb screw device that attaches to the top edge of the tank glass.

Unfortunately the tube was broken during shipping. I found replacement tube at Home Despot but the built in ballast really struggles to fire up the tube. There is a lot of flickering and sometimes it comes on sometimes not. If I put my hand on the tube it usually fires but not always.

I found another tube at Rona made by another manufacturer but with the same issue.

The idea is to have the refugium light on a timer that would come on at night to keep the chaeto etc active at night.

Anybody have any tricks?