# tube life



## neilw (Nov 20, 2004)

Helloooo,

Another question, how long do you think a tube would last. I've read that if they lose a bit of their intensity it can start causing problems. How long would you typically wait before replacing a tube?


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## webgandalf (Nov 26, 2004)

Normally a T8 tube have a Life of 6 month .
A t5-tl5 12 month


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## Sir_BlackhOle (Jan 25, 2004)

I try to replace them at about six months....maybe a month or two longer.


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## cS (Jan 27, 2004)

I don't replace the light "tubes"  until it breaks. The loss in lighting intensity is really only a problem for those on the periphery between low/moderate, moderate/high light, etc. Most of us have plenty of light over our tanks so the loss of light from the tubes aging is almost negligible IMHO.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

If you're talking about CF tubes you can double the replacement recommendation to 12 months.

Did you wind up going with the MH lighting? IF you did, it's probably entirely different again.


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## Featherfin (Jun 21, 2004)

When I looked into buying GE Aqua Ray 55 watt 9325 it said they were good for 10,000 hours. I never figured out the = days equation.


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## turbomkt (Mar 31, 2004)

Featherfin said:


> When I looked into buying GE Aqua Ray 55 watt 9325 it said they were good for 10,000 hours. I never figured out the = days equation.


Well, if you figure 10 hours a day, that's 1000 days. ~3 years? But what is 10,000 hours? MTBF?


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## gnatster (Mar 6, 2004)

> MTBF


I know someone will ask...

Mean Time till Bulb Failure or the avg of how long the bulb lasts till it blows.


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## turbomkt (Mar 31, 2004)

Sorry...MTBF is a generic term that means Mean Time Between Failure. Big in the hardware world


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## neilw (Nov 20, 2004)

JanS said:


> If you're talking about CF tubes you can double the replacement recommendation to 12 months.
> 
> Did you wind up going with the MH lighting? IF you did, it's probably entirely different again.


I'm getting there, I haven't bought the setup yet but I really want to try MH lights.


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