Cali Kid Corals

UV lamp watts

svreef

svreef

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In the last two days, my UV lamp has started to draw more watts than normal, triggering alerts from the Apex. Normal range was 50-54 for the last 9 months. Now, it’s getting as high as 60. Why would that be? Would a dirty sleeve cause that?
 
Could be the bulb, could be the ballast.
Could be salt creep on connectors, but those should be sealed.
Could even be the Apex power sensor.
Very unlikely to be because of a dirty sleeve. While that keeps it from working as well, not sure how that would affect power.

I would suggest replacing the bulb. If you run it 24/7, 9 months is over 6,000 hours.
Depending on brand/bulb, that may be nearing the end of its lifetime.
 
svreef said:
It’s an Aqua UV 57W. They claim 14 months bulb life.
Click to expand...
I swap mine out every year or so. Never really seen apex show more than +- 1-2 watts and if it was anything more than that I would definitely pull it out for a thorough cleaning and bulb change as well as checking all the wiring/connections.
 
The_Lazy_Reefer said:
I swap mine out every year or so. Never really seen apex show more than +- 1-2 watts and if it was anything more than that I would definitely pull it out for a thorough cleaning and bulb change as well as checking all the wiring/connections.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I did have plans to swap the bulb at the one year mark.
 
That’s odd. Wouldn’t it be that the wattage goes down if the bulb is old? Scratching my head on this one.


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