So I have this 40g setup with 10 clowns and (now) 11 nems running since February this year. Everything was doing great until a month and a half ago. Nems went hiding and started moving around constantly.. clowns looked like they were dying half laying on the sand and half floating around looking lazy and also hiding in the rocks… the weirdest **it I’ve ever seen. When feeding they would all wake back up and eat no problem. Honestly I thought the clowns had some disease and it was affecting the entire tank. I let it be and just monitored them week after week. This week I said to myself maybe the MH light (150w HQI) was frying them up so I took it offline and just used my other led lights. Sure enough the next day all my nems were back out and all my clowns were just like how they used to be swimming around everywhere happy not a single one laying on the sand anymore and all of them are out in the open not hiding……. I was literally cooking the nems and fish with the MH light!?!?! WTF lol I have only used MH fixtures for the past 18 years and not one time have I seen this happen.
Strange affects from MH light output
- Thread starter Veinz
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That’s wild — hard to believe that MH caused this behavior but learn something new everyday.
I’ve stopped using MH when I’ve diverted cost of electricity and bulbs to fund our children’s college tuition. Also, cops stopped randomly showing up at the house thinking it’s some meth labs.. so that’s a positive change.
I’ve stopped using MH when I’ve diverted cost of electricity and bulbs to fund our children’s college tuition. Also, cops stopped randomly showing up at the house thinking it’s some meth labs.. so that’s a positive change.
definitely something with the light. Been 4 days now since I’ve turned it off and everything is back to normal. Before with the light on I would walk by the tank and see 4 clowns laying sideways on the sand thought they were all dead. This would happen every single day for weeks. I think @Tangerine Speedo has a point about the UV frying everything up some how some way.
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UV causing that behavior and them being remedied by turning off the bulb is unlikely.
IME it is more likely you had/have some type of electrical issue with the MH ballast or bulb. A cracked bulb can leach electricity into the tank. Also sometimes an exposed wire on the ballast will also cause this.
Anemone's can learn responses to electrical stimuli and do react by retracting their tentacles and expelling their water. You can actually teach them this behavior, so the light could actual act as a stimulus even after the electrical issue is fixed for some time.
If you have an electricity conductor I would start there and make sure nothing is leaching into the tank when the MH is on. It doesn't have to be something in the tank, I had current jump about a foot from an exposed wire going into my ballast in my aquariums hood that transferred into my water. It was quite a jolt, actually knocked me unconscious.
Wouldn't really explain the clowns behavior... could be something else.
IME it is more likely you had/have some type of electrical issue with the MH ballast or bulb. A cracked bulb can leach electricity into the tank. Also sometimes an exposed wire on the ballast will also cause this.
Anemone's can learn responses to electrical stimuli and do react by retracting their tentacles and expelling their water. You can actually teach them this behavior, so the light could actual act as a stimulus even after the electrical issue is fixed for some time.
If you have an electricity conductor I would start there and make sure nothing is leaching into the tank when the MH is on. It doesn't have to be something in the tank, I had current jump about a foot from an exposed wire going into my ballast in my aquariums hood that transferred into my water. It was quite a jolt, actually knocked me unconscious.
Wouldn't really explain the clowns behavior... could be something else.
Yeah, I would think there's something wrong with the bulb or ballast (probably both) that caused the issue. I've had several ballasts that had issues and were outputting way more wattage than they should have, which caused the bulb to change drastically. I'm all for MH, but in this situation, the juice may not be worth the squeeze.
FYI: For anyone who isn't aware about the (protective) glass used on MH fixtures, SE bulbs can be used without the glass, as this prevents water from hitting the bulb and shattering into a millions pieces (which I've seen). DE bulbs absolutely need protective glass, as there isn't any protective layers of glass on the bulb itself like SE bulbs have, so harmful UV can and will cause damage if the glass isn't present.
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^^^^^ This right here. ^^^^^
DE HQI bulbs don't have the UV shielding in the bulb glass and will burn just about anything in the tank if used without the glass covers in place. There are a couple of threads on this issue on other forums from people who fried their tanks by removing the glass. The single end Mogul Base bulbs have UV shielding in the bulb glass, Double End HQI bulbs do not.
DE HQI bulbs don't have the UV shielding in the bulb glass and will burn just about anything in the tank if used without the glass covers in place. There are a couple of threads on this issue on other forums from people who fried their tanks by removing the glass. The single end Mogul Base bulbs have UV shielding in the bulb glass, Double End HQI bulbs do not.
