It's always something, isn't it?

[perpetual98]

So about a few weeks ago I notice that my corals on one side of my 120G tank aren't looking so hot. I figured that they'd like a water change, so I bust out the hoses and buckets. As I'm changing the water, I notice that one of the 14,000K halides is burned out. No big deal I say to myself, since I have some backup bulbs avaiable. I swap out both 14k bulbs for 10k bulbs, finish the water change and thing everything is ducky.

The last week, the corals seem to have perked up a bit, but nothing like they were before, so I decided to get off my lazy butt and do another water change. Figure it couldn't hurt.

I open the canopy and am like, WTF, the UV glass had fallen off of one of the retros. Took me like 10 minutes to find it in the tank. Of course it was way in the back and I had to get a step ladder to fish it out.

I decided to move the corals to one of my other tanks where the corals are doing much better. My 4" tall green slimer and my pocillopora are both bleach white on the side that they were getting blasted by the unshielded UV rays. I'm not sure that they'll recover.

Oh yeah, I hate my skimmer too.

end rant...

[dakar]

Was this with one of the 70w HQI halides? According to the packaging the outer envelope is supposed to be UV shielded. Hope everything recovers!

[perpetual98]

Yeah, it was a 70W Ushio. I know that the Astralux said they have "UV Shield" on the bulbs, but from what I've read, it's not like having a separate piece of glass.