CF bulb failure mode?

[Jeff Dantzler]

I have a 96 watt CustomSeaLife Smartlight that stopped working. The lamp
will not light at all. The bulb has been in service for 3+ years. Is this
a typical bulb failure given the amount of use the bulb has seen?

Unfortunately I was not around when it failed. Before I spend $50 on
another bulb it would be reasuring to know that fluorescents will fail
this way rather than the possibility of my ballast going AWOL. Have other
folks had good luck with these fixtures?

Thanks for any input.

Jeff Dantzler (reply to group rather than email)
Seattle, WA

[Cichlidiot]

Jeff Dantzler > wrote:
> I have a 96 watt CustomSeaLife Smartlight that stopped working. The lamp
> will not light at all. The bulb has been in service for 3+ years. Is this
> a typical bulb failure given the amount of use the bulb has seen?
>

Most people in the plant group replace their bulbs every 6-12 months just
to keep optimal output (the bulbs still work at this point, but not as
"brightly" as new bulbs). I realize you're likely a reefer because of the
type of bulb, but I bet reefers also replace before the bulb runs out of
physical life too. Point being you probably should replace the bulb before
it burns out for optimum lighting.

Anyways, back to the question at hand. I believe that 3+ years is an
extremely great lifetime for a bulb. That's over 10,000 hours assuming the
light was on for 10 hours a day. I say get a new bulb. It probably just
gave up the ghost after a very long lifespan.

[Cichlidiot]

Jeff Dantzler > wrote:
<snip>
> I was lazy, cheap, and somewhat curious how long the bulb would last and
> how it would die. I was just a little surprised that the bulb would
> completely refuse to start and curious what the mode of failure was.
> Thanks for the input.

Typical mode of death for regular fluorescents is to blink rapidly a day
or two before they die completely. Then they will refuse to light. Some
might also just flicker for quite a long time after being turned on, but
stabilize for a while, then die completely (my bathroom ones do this).
I've only seen one CF fail, and that was a 13w porch light at my apartment
complex (so not sure how it would extend to the larger, aquaria related
bulbs). It blinked for a couple hours then went dead. Only reason I
noticed the blinking is because it was my neighbor's porch light. Usually
any time I see a flicker in a fluorescent (regular or CF) that lasts for
more than a minute after turning it on or that starts up at any time while
it is on, I figure the bulb is on its way out and replace it.