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jonafriendj 
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 Topic: Fluorescence
Posted: August 12 2008 at 7:04pm |
I'm not sure who told me corals only flourece under actinic lights and would not under a black light, but.... liar 
I recently acquired a black light from a project and thought I'd see if anything would flourece in my tank and woah!!! 100x cooler than the actinic lights.
If you want to see some awesome colors in your tank go grab yourself a cheap blacklight!
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Pleasant Grove
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GentlemanBean
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Posted: August 12 2008 at 7:18pm |
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I've never heard that corals won't glow under black light but I have heard that common black lights put off too much UV and are bad for the tank...
However, I haven't done any research to confirm this. Anyone else able to confirm?
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jonafriendj
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Posted: August 12 2008 at 7:33pm |
I wouldn't doubt that. But I'm positive they could handle the uv for as long as you were using a blacklight to check them out.
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Pleasant Grove
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Mike Savage
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Posted: August 12 2008 at 10:19pm |
Corals flouresce well under black light but it is hard to find a black light that has much intensity. I like the color of the blue much better too.
Mike
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dons
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Posted: January 05 2009 at 6:35pm |
I was scouring Ebay today and saw this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=300283999885After doing a search here on black lights my question is: are these lights dangerous for the fish. I have found that most corals develop pigments to help protect themselves from the UV lights and that is why they flouresce. Would this be too much? Thanks
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: January 05 2009 at 9:48pm |
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Adam is the expert on this. Let's see what he has to say.
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bbauman
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Posted: January 05 2009 at 10:12pm |
I already tried asking him  :
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dons
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Posted: January 05 2009 at 11:23pm |
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Well I went ahead and ordered them to try them out. I couldn't find anything that said it would hurt the fish. I was just wondering cause isn't it what they use in a UV sterilizer, just higher wattage. I don't think I will have them on more than a couple of hours a day, just to see the flourescence. I will take some pictures when they get here and I get them installed.
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cl2ysta1
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Posted: January 05 2009 at 11:41pm |
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do our halides not put off UV light? isnt that the point of them?
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I <3 Boxers
Achilles tang lover
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Jake Pehrson
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Posted: January 06 2009 at 1:06am |
Halides do put off UV light, but as anyone that has had their protective glass break (or just forgot to install it in a DE setup) can tell you UV in high or wrong levels can quickly kill corals (keep in mind there is more then one type of UV).
Feel free to read this article by Dana Riddle to learn more about UV.
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Adam Blundell
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Posted: January 06 2009 at 10:13am |
Sorry missed this before.
Yes, it is generally agreed upon that UV light is very bad for corals. It can make them fluoresce, however I still think that your 420 and 470 light activates far more fluorescent proteins.
Look at it this way, top researchers who are using fluorescence to study corals are NOT using UV light but are instead using blue light.
Adam
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: January 06 2009 at 11:02am |
 jonafriendj wrote:
100x cooler than the actinic lights.
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not all blue lights have the best actinic wavelength (420nm) and the amount of fluorescing will increase with power/intensity. Human eyes cannot see actinic wavelength too well, so it's easy for the actinic bulbs to lose power, especially with age, and we don't notice it. When I look directly at true Actinic, I see little squiggly worms on my eyeball. Not all blue and so called Actinic lights do this for me. Yeah, call me weird, but that's me. 
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dons
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Posted: January 06 2009 at 1:03pm |
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Doh, guess I should wait till everyone has had a chance to chime in on the subject before I act. Guess I will use them as a UV sterilizer somewhere else
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