It never end...Is it my ballast?

[Craig7718]

I have an icecap ballast, i guess going on about 3 years old. No warranty obviously.

Today my lights didnt turn on. Hoping it was just the timer i plug them directly into the wall. They lit up for a sec and turned right back off. Is this a sign that the ballast is bad. All the bulbs are about 2 months old.

 

[Len]

Craig, the highest chances are one bulb went bad. I know it's relatively new bulbs, but they break from time to time. Change all of them out and it should work, or find the one that is bad (will take annoying trial and error, but no sense throwing out 2 month old good bulbs)

If one bulb is bad in the chain, all won't light up.

 

[Anonymous]

It's more than likely the bulbs. If it's the ballast, they can repair it for you instead of buy a new one.

 

[Anonymous]

Third on the bulb.

 

[Eboman]

Yup....probably the bulb. If you have ohmeter, you can check the bulbs without all the trial and error.

Check out this website.....it will walk you through the process.

http://209.204.76.225/pdf/contest.pdf

Thanks,
Eboman

P.S. If it does end up being the ballast, you can send it back to Icecap and they'll repair it for you. They may charge you a couple of bucks....but it's better than scrapping the ballast.

 

[Craig7718]

I found the problem. One endcap was burned up and the prong on the end of the vho was cracked. Not sure how it happened , but it s fixed now.

That means I tackeled hair algae and lighting failures in the last 2 weeks, now i may have a reef again if i can get rid of the cyano.