fan on the lights

[cheeto_1983]

so as ya'll saw my pics probably in the general freshwater forum I have a new Nova Extreme 108 watt t-5 HO lamps. 48 inches. Anyways it comes with a fan on the side. The fan has a slight buzz to it that I could do without if possible. So in your expert opinions...do i have to leave the fan going?

The lamp sits right on top of my all glass tops. I also have a canopy with a good 6 inches of space between the lamp and the top, and the canopy is completely open in the back, so I feel like good circulation is back there.

Thoughts?

[biggin]

If you kill the fan you kill your light much faster....

The light already has a limited life span but with out the fan the additional heat will shorten that.

[cheeto_1983]

Oh no u make it sound like it won't be around for long...what is the lifespan? They don't tell u that on the box lmao

[biggin]

Bulbs are good for maybe a year.

Over heat it and ballast will not be around for too long....

[cheeto_1983]

if I get an automatic timer to cycle it every couple of hours do you think that will increase the life expectancy?

Right now I was planning on leaving it on for 10 hours at a time

Dangit man you got me all worried lol...I've never had high powered lights so I just went out and bought what I thought I needed

[rolloffhill]

I replaced the fan in my Coralife fixture to a silent one, you can't even tell that its on. Sucks though since it is a brand new fixture, but the people that put these together could care less about the noise they put out...

[AndrewH]

Yeah replacing with a "silent" fan is the best option IMHO.

Simply disconnecting the fan will, like Biggin said, greatly reduce the lamp and ballast's life. The lamp life for the 46" - 54W - T5HO is in the area of 30,000 to 36,000 hours. If the lamp is on for 10 hours per day, that's 3650 hours per year or about 10 years of life. The ballast will normally outlast the lamps, but I don't have the exact numbers. Might be 40,000 hours or 100,000 hours rated... might be more or less than that. But in general the life of the lamp and ballast are based off the heat they're exposed to over their life. More heat = shorter life, less heat = longer life.

Also, turning the lamps on and off will greatly reduce their life as well. When you start (turn on) a fluorescent tube the ballast actually hits it with an extremely high voltage to "get it going" so to speak (normally because the lamp is cold). This higher voltage is what causes the lamp to eventually stop working (burn out) and the more you do it the shorter the lamp's life will be.