BLACKLIGHTS not good?

[KMTaquarium]

would blacklights be suitable to use as either a night light or a supplement
would this extra UV light help to intensify the corals color or hurt it

does it do more good or more bad?
thanks
-kevin

 

[Anonymous]

hi.
MPO is that it does nothing but waste electricity.

Make your coral grow-in-the-dark...

 

[Len]

Blacklights (UV-A bulbs) are extremely inefficient, and produce very little PAR. It will make particular corals fluoresce, but probably won't contribute much - if anything - in way of health. Blacklights aren't good candidates for night lights. In nature, there is no UV radiation at night, and this would at best, be unnatural for your livestock and at worst, be detrimental to certain dinural/nocturnal patterns. Personally, I say don't bother with them.

 

[KMTaquarium]

i had suspected that but thought of asking on here

i would of thought UV radiation would help intensify the corals color to help protect them from the UV

iwas curious if anyone had used them

 

[HuBu]

if you want to see whats going on at nite. get a red light instead. most sea creatures cant pick up the red spectrum.

 

[KMTaquarium]

i would of thought UV radiation would help intensify the corals color to help protect them from the UV

during the day

 

[Jeff Hood]

Well with all the receint talk lately of the color of corals basically being a defense against UV light I would think this is worthy of experimentation.

Somebody should take two smallish tanks with identical setups and coral frags and see what if any differance it makes.

One tank with just say a 20000K Radium and the other supplemented with the Black light. You could use any base lighting you have and then add the UV a light. Would be interesting.

Jeff

 

[KMTaquarium]

ill have to do that!! ill take pics to of hte set up and of the effects after a few weeks!

 

[KMTaquarium]

the reason is that humans build up pigments to help protect ourself from UV light. its also called getting a tan, which is why i would assume the same with corals!!
i will try and see the beneifts and downsides!

 

[Mouse]

This has been discussed before, the top reply was that the fish would suffer the most. But i dont really see how they could be sure as no-one has done it. I would tend to agree that it will increse the UV-A UV-B protective mechanism and create more bioluminecent corals. But then again could some ofthem really get any brighter.

 

[Jeff Hood]

Please keep us posted on the results. Be sure to take time lapsed photos.

Jeff

 

[MFisher]

I'm not convinced that pigments are a function of protection from UV. This may be a side effect of pigmentation but not its purpose. IME dim tanks produce brighter "flourescent" colors and bright light causes "the brownness".

Too many people try to find a reason for everything in nature the fact remains that in many situations a trait (in this instance color) may have no purpose or function at all. They just aren't selected against.

Matt