steveomori
New member
blah blah lets not bicker so much. i thought this is a forum to help each other not argue. i can hang out with the wife if i wanted to hear bickering. ha ha
Can A Blacklight Stimulate Growth?
- Thread starter JCOLE
- Start date
Next time you're in St. Louis, I'll meet you anywhere so you can push some bifocals up on my face and tell me to shutup........well try anyways. :lol:
I don't know everything, not a Marine Biologist, but what I don't know, I'm willing to search to find the answer for.
I took one second and googled this searching for "Blacklight saltwater tank"
First Hit!!!!!
http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/lighting/l/aa031300e.htm
Read fourth paragraph. Better yet I'll copy for all the people who are too lazy to search.......
"Basically, and without getting into a deep science seminar, the lower the Kelvin, the more yellow the light. Hence, the higher the Kelvin, our light appears starkly white or blue-white. Getting way up there into the 20,000K range, the bulbs actually appear to glow dark blue! Shades of the blacklight craze! Oh no, don't EVEN go there! Blacklight has tons of that nasty ultraviolet, and our animals don't like that at all! Save it for the bowling alleys or fuzzy posters! "
The internet is a beautiful thing, isn't it? Took me all of about 30 seconds.
Blacklights are used in aquariums. Where you ask????? Hmmmmm.....................................They are used in UV filters to kill things. :lol:
Hope that answers your questions. If you have anything else to say about me or my family why don't you PM me.
Thanks man you've been a big help!!!!!....your awesome.. and so smart. Whats funny is Im done , i got my answers, thanks to all those who "actually helped me," yet you still have something to say. AMAZING!!
See you bicker and complain and talk crap about me, and all those who repost( which by the way is no freakin big deal) and yet you still make time out of "YOUR BUSY SCHEDULE" to help me out.......Ignorant or Funny?
Like i said its no big deal, Im done, thanks everyone for all your help on this topic.
pleaselaunchme
New member
Not trying to get embroiled, but....
Blacklight lamps you can buy at walmart are not the same at all as UV sterilizer lamps. If they were, being under a blacklight would burn and destroy your skin and eyes. Although this is the UVA spectrum which is the least harmful spectrum. At the same time, think of this. We live in an extraordinarily litigous society with a lovely nanny government who is looking out for us through such organizations as the CPSC. One of the CPSC's goals is to ensure product safety, and as such, it seems to reason that if blacklights were really so harmful they would not be legal. While I suppose the effects of UVA on fish and other marine creatures could be different, consider this as well-reef creatures spend their lives baking under the sun, day in and day out. As such, it seems reasonable to believe they have developed mechanisms to deal with the exposure, much as humans have.
A typical store bought blacklight is around 370 nanometers, while a sterilization lamp is under 280.
In short, will it harm the fish? While I can't say so definitively, I would have no qualms sticking blacklights on my tank.
HTH,
PS- while I am unfamiliar with the author of this particular about.com article, I have witnessed way too many "experts" on that site who have no business issuing the advice they do. As always, anything online needs to be viewed with a grain of salt.
Blacklight lamps you can buy at walmart are not the same at all as UV sterilizer lamps. If they were, being under a blacklight would burn and destroy your skin and eyes. Although this is the UVA spectrum which is the least harmful spectrum. At the same time, think of this. We live in an extraordinarily litigous society with a lovely nanny government who is looking out for us through such organizations as the CPSC. One of the CPSC's goals is to ensure product safety, and as such, it seems to reason that if blacklights were really so harmful they would not be legal. While I suppose the effects of UVA on fish and other marine creatures could be different, consider this as well-reef creatures spend their lives baking under the sun, day in and day out. As such, it seems reasonable to believe they have developed mechanisms to deal with the exposure, much as humans have.
A typical store bought blacklight is around 370 nanometers, while a sterilization lamp is under 280.
In short, will it harm the fish? While I can't say so definitively, I would have no qualms sticking blacklights on my tank.
HTH,
PS- while I am unfamiliar with the author of this particular about.com article, I have witnessed way too many "experts" on that site who have no business issuing the advice they do. As always, anything online needs to be viewed with a grain of salt.
I'm smart for being able to search for things myself huh? If you say so.
lolMaybe I should have just replied "HEY MAN, YOU ARE A PURE GENIUS. NO ONE HAS EVER THOUGHT OF PUTTING A BLACKLIGHT ABOVE AN AQUARIUM!!!!!" If it was really beneficial, bulb manufacturers would be relabeling blacklight bulbs and marking them up for sale to the hobby. dumbdumbdumb. COMMON SENSE > you
pleaselaunchme- okay, Kent has some good info on their site. Trust them?
"Overexposure to UV-A and UV-B causes sunburn, both in humans and other organisms (including clams and corals containing zooxanthellae)."
How have we developed mechanisms to deal with the exposure to UV light? Please explain............ Does your skin emit sunscreen onto yourself when you go out on a sunny day? Do your eyes have built in sunglasses? You've heard of skin cancer and cataracts before right?
There is a reason why UV filters (not the water filtration kind) are used on aquarium lighting. It is to block as much UV as we can from entering the aquarium. If you want to walk the other way though, feel free and I wish you all good luck.
What the hell is wrong with you people. This kinda thing makes me sick. We all want to learn and we have knowlage that we should share. If you dont want to learn or share then I think this is the wrong place for you.
But H2oH2o it was a very interesting question unfortunately I dont have the time to look at 3 pages of bickering.
We are all in this together, lets act like it.
But H2oH2o it was a very interesting question unfortunately I dont have the time to look at 3 pages of bickering.
We are all in this together, lets act like it.
pleaselaunchme
New member
First off, none of that info came from Kent or any other aquarium related site.
Second of all, melanin is our bodies defense against UV. Don't believe me? Pick up a medical text or look at the CDC's webpages. That is why, very generally speaking, people in sunnier climates have developed darker skin. It is also why you tan- your body is either releasing stored melanin or producing it in an effort to protect your cells from the radiation damage. So in essence, your body does have a form of sunscreen built in.
BTW- If you want to continue discussing this, my responses may be delayed as I am busy with work the next week or two.
EDIT:
I misunderstood what you were saying about the Kent site before, I thought you meant thats where I got my info. After finding the article you referenced, I started to read it, and lo and behold, the next sentence and then paragraph read:
"If a light source is emitting a high intensity of these UV types, coral and clam tissue can become damaged.
Metal halide bulbs, for the most part, employ the use of glass that filters UV light out of the emission, though there are still some lamps (typically the imported double-ended bulbs) that must be retrofitted with a glass UV-filter. Very High Output (VHO) bulbs also emit relatively large intensities of UV light, and so must either be shielded or placed further away from the aquarium, or organisms sensitive to UV light must be placed further down in the aquarium in order to protect them from the harmful radiation. Organisms originating in shallow or intertidal water are somewhat accustomed to, and can typically tolerate, a greater intensity of UV light than can "deep water" organisms, which lack enough UV-blocking pigments to protect the specimen from damage."
I have never heard of someone getting skin cancer or cataracts from blacklights, but you never know I guess. When I get more time, I think I will try and find some more empiracle data regarding the amount of energy in these wavelengths common blacklight lamps are producing and the amount of UV radiation these corals are exposed to at various depths (if this data exists).
Ben
Second of all, melanin is our bodies defense against UV. Don't believe me? Pick up a medical text or look at the CDC's webpages. That is why, very generally speaking, people in sunnier climates have developed darker skin. It is also why you tan- your body is either releasing stored melanin or producing it in an effort to protect your cells from the radiation damage. So in essence, your body does have a form of sunscreen built in.
BTW- If you want to continue discussing this, my responses may be delayed as I am busy with work the next week or two.
EDIT:
I misunderstood what you were saying about the Kent site before, I thought you meant thats where I got my info. After finding the article you referenced, I started to read it, and lo and behold, the next sentence and then paragraph read:
"If a light source is emitting a high intensity of these UV types, coral and clam tissue can become damaged.
Metal halide bulbs, for the most part, employ the use of glass that filters UV light out of the emission, though there are still some lamps (typically the imported double-ended bulbs) that must be retrofitted with a glass UV-filter. Very High Output (VHO) bulbs also emit relatively large intensities of UV light, and so must either be shielded or placed further away from the aquarium, or organisms sensitive to UV light must be placed further down in the aquarium in order to protect them from the harmful radiation. Organisms originating in shallow or intertidal water are somewhat accustomed to, and can typically tolerate, a greater intensity of UV light than can "deep water" organisms, which lack enough UV-blocking pigments to protect the specimen from damage."
I have never heard of someone getting skin cancer or cataracts from blacklights, but you never know I guess. When I get more time, I think I will try and find some more empiracle data regarding the amount of energy in these wavelengths common blacklight lamps are producing and the amount of UV radiation these corals are exposed to at various depths (if this data exists).
Ben
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pleaselaunchme
New member
See above
Most people don't have a problem with a newbie asking question, this is what the forum is for. But if the newbies starts to SPAM the same topic in mutlitple threads, then that is not effective or helpful. So before you make multiple threads in various part of the forum, please find the right forum and post the question there. And do a search function, most likely your question was already answered. So just because you want the answer NOW doesn't give you the right to start posting all over the forum with the same topic because this kills the search function in the future when someone does a search, and finds 5-10 of the same topic by 1 person with sporadic answers in all the threads. Try to keep it in 1 thread, and if it is in the right location, eventually someone will answer it. If you want the answer now, then do a search function through the premium membership.
I'm new here and starting from scratch..and I have to say...thanks to those who have patience and really love to give their expertise on here because they really enjoy the hobby...but to those of you who just have no life..and have to fight with people over a thread because they are new and aren't sure how to do things...you really need to just chill out. You make yourselves look like idiots. The reason you are a member yourself might just be to get advice...so if you continue your bantering...YOU will be the one to not receive any help and your advice (if you decide to actually give some instead of offering nasty comments) will not be valued.
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