I'm an idiot.
Its not the C doing it. OX you are right. I did my usual multimeter check last night while trying to run down an electrical problem I thought I had in house has been making my electronic ballasts go nuts. Well the second I hooked it up it read 135 volts. which normally wouldn't set off any alarms because it could have been a momentary spike. But it kept slowly rising ! It topped out at 206 volts ! TWO HUNDRED AND SIX VOLTS I SAID !! On a residential 120V wall receptacle man ! I did some checking and every outlet on the house is juiced up the same amount.
That can only mean something in the local circuitry ( or micro grid or what ever they call it ) on my street of in the same circuit is about to have a bad day. and if they don't fix it pronto a lot of people will be having a bad day because I can see that causing a lot of fires. Most of the homes in my village are 80 years old. Some still have the aluminum wiring and 60 amp services ! Thank God mine is 100 amp with 200 at the box !
Any ways to make along story short I had to rais my fixture and extra FOOT off of the water surface because the ballasts were over driving the bulbs so bad it looked like 2 x 400watt 10K Iwasaki's over the tank instead of 2 x 250 watt 14K ! There is no doubt I just didn't notice the extra brightness the other day and blamed the fading on the C. Bu tin reality I think it is most definitely due to the over driven bulbs shocking the sheet out of my stock !

Man I bet that service is so frucked up right now with harmonic distortion the sine wave would look like look like a seismograph reading ! That alone would fruck up electronic ballasts let alone the extra voltage as well !
I have to wait until 8 to call the power company but you can bet you xrunner I will be though ! LOL!
I am seriously worried about fire now

Ok... im done now

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/ rant and thread jack