it was definitely the bulb. I called the place I ordered it from and they are sending me a replacement w/ no questions asked.

In the mean time I went to the local grow shop and picked up a Philips/GE LU400. Rated at 45k Lumens and color temperature is 2100K.

The bulb I had was a high output bulb with 55k Lumens.

The only thing I'm unsure of is the color spectrum, seems that the 2100K would be really red.

In the mean time this will make a great back up bulb and it was only 20 bucks locally.