Hello Electrical/Lighting Geniuses!

[christyf5]

Hey guys,

So a couple of weeks ago I noticed that my bulbs seemed dimmer somehow. They are still bright enough to fry your retinas if you look directly at them but the tank just seems, I dunno, dim. I got ahold of some old bulbs (younger than the ones I have now) and tried those out. They were noticeably brighter to look at (superfried retinas vs regular fried ) and everything was fine. That was monday. Today the bulbs are back to dim. I am wondering if somehow I have fried the ballasts or capacitors (?). The setup is H37 bare ballasts wired to plastic thingys which I think I was told were capacitors in a aluminum box. The box gets pretty hot so I keep the lid open.

Anyway, I did have a problem before with only one of the bulbs appearing noticeably dimmer, we discussed nipple orientation (snicker ), BCHydro messing around with stuff and I believe capacitors. I did add a mag 12 to the circuit and was wondering if maybe I am using too much power or something? Wouldn't the breaker just trip?

Any help is appreciated. I was hoping to get a couple more months out of these bulbs if possible. Jack was using them on his tank for awhile and didn't see any problems with them. For all I know I could have been staring at them for too long and maybe its me thats dim

TIA
Christy


PS. Hey Brad, Jack thinks its because I don't have a calcium reactor