Black Lights

[chefrepo]

Being the avid DIYer and always wanting to try new things I was wondering if anybody has tried black light bulbs as a substitute to the moonlight LED's. My figuring is that this would bring out some really good flourescent colors at night and a bit cheaper than putting LED's in the canopy. However before trying this and spending $ I could be spending elsewhere(like frags) or having a bad effect on the health of our corals I figured it would be wise to throw it out here for opinion and feedback. Thanks

 

[xyzpdq0121]

Greg,

People have had the idea for years now. I will try to dig up the artical about it but I believe that it is a very bad thing. The light emitted from a black light is actually bad for corals. I can not remember why though. I think it has to do with the wavelength.

 

[ster]

Good way to blind your fish

 

[ralph atl]

Just put a high output t-5 actinic strip in your canopy.

 

[tim8111]

I read an article on this. It is the UV wavelength. Corals do not have the ability to resist the UV radiation at that wave length. It is like if a human stays out in the sun at the equator for 12 hours with no sun screen. Bad things

Thanks,
Tim

 

[george]

Black lights are something like 350-ish nanometers for wavelength which is UV. Actinics are in the 420 range.

Black lights aren't particularly harmful to people, but what doesn't touch us, may be catastrophic to the small organisms in a tank.

 

[glxtrix]

Somewhere on RC this thread came up....I like it was like 3+ years ago. Someone put a few bulbs on their tank....corals looked awesome, but there were issues with the corals and fish that resulted. Just as Charlie says, VHO actinics are...to me....hands down the best actinic supp. you can go with. And it's relatively cheap too. No reflectors needed, the URi Super Actinic R bulbs come with a built in reflector....bulbs are under 20 for any length and the ballasts range from 20-100 depending on how many bulbs you want. IF anyone needs convincing on the color, come over to my house, I run 2 URi's on my tank and I LOVE THEM!

 

[glxtrix]

or you could go with T5's...the color isn't as good as the VHO's (my opinion), BUT....it looks nice, the setup is a little smaller (not much) and you can get some PAR from the bulbs. The VHO's deliver pretty much no PAR.

 

[george]

ares;246604 wrote: but we arent corals. so are we lumping "black lights" in with true sterilization UV wavelengths, or are corals actually harmed even by those wavelengths that do not harm humans?

Remember that "do not harm" is relative. A couple of Cokes (or anything else with caffeine in it) won't harm a human, but feed that amount of caffeine to a dog or cat (or smaller organism) and it can be dangerous or even lethal.

 

[dannybradley]

'Blacklight' is a very small spectrum of light that has no benefit to photosynthesis. It does not peak over 380nm. It really only emits UVA, which is nearly harmless compared to UVB and UVC.

The main issue I've seen with it in fish tanks is that it tends to reflect off of every single tiny particle in the water. If you want your tank to appear cloudy, put a black light on it. If you want your coral to pop, follow the lighting suggestions already in this thread.

 

[chefrepo]

Thanks for the info guys. It was just a passing thought as a alternative to LED moonlight. Although Tim may not mind helping me restock my tank at this point I will have to pass on that. Looks like its LEDs then. As always y'all are the best.