Coral Fluorescence, moon lights and black light.

[Stipe]

I always new about the beautiful Fluorescence my brown corals had, but i could never see it. Recently in the kellogs Coco-pops cereal, you have a one in three chance to reciece in the box a secrent agents pen. This pen, on one side has some type of clear ink texta and on the other side has soem sort of light. When you right with the clear marker you cant see the writtign until you shine the light at the ink. The light is a purple light, so obsiosly those black lights that you see the cops use to find sperm in the movies etc. I took this pen to my tank and shoen the 'black' light at my bron corals. To my amazment the corals all shone in a bright neon green. I was amazed. Now i what this colour to one all the tiem when i have guests over (lights go off at 6:00pm, most guests usualy come over for dinenr around 8:00-9:00pm).

Now i hear big talk about moon lights. What are they? I mean what spectral light do they give out that makes them so good? Are they LED version of black lights? There is a science store in a local shopping centre that sells black lights for parties etc that, im not sure if you know, but when you walk under then all your white patches in your cloths shine with purple Fluorescence. I was wonderign if i could buy one of these and use it as a moon light for my tank. Also what are the long term effects of having it as a moon light etc. I woudl be able to see my corals lovely, Fluorescence and also some nice inversts that come out at night. And how do moon lights compare to them, if moon lights are not them.

Heres some pictures of black lights and its look in a room and on some Fluorescence inverts.

 

[wds21921]

Try this http://members.misty.com/don/f-spec.html
towards the bottom of the page it goes into a little detail of a few different type blacklights but it looks as if the spectral range is pretty narrow in the lower nm range from 350nm-435.8nm according to that source.
The effect? I'm not sure. You could check with Boomer or Randy Farley to see if there are any benefits or drawbacks from it.

 

[Ciarán]

I use a blacklight as an "actinic" so to speak on my system. It is an 18" T8 15 Watt. It brings out fantastic fluorescence in my zoanthids, anemones etc. but the only problem is that it just isnt powerful enough to adequately illuminate everything. The issue with blacklights is the fact that their spectrum is so defined that much of it is U.V., invisible to our eyes. Another thing you may consider is the U.V. emission by such fixtures. I only have mine on for one hour each day, just after my halide goes out but having it on for prolonged periods may be a potential problem. I have a reflector on mine but still the illumination needs to be at least double to be effective. It is about 10" over the water so i can access my tank. Im actually thinking of getting true actinic spectrum bulbs instead of my blacklight to try a boost the visible luminescence.

IMO, "moonlights" or actinics of some kind, be they fluorescents or LEDs will be better. The filtered blacklights referred to in that link posted above are generally the blacklights on sale and that is exactly what i have. They have very poor illuminatory properties and IMO you should go for a true blue/violet spectru bulb, not a blacklight. My experience of blacklights has taught me that they work to some extent but a proper actinic will be so much better.

 

[Stipe]

The bulbs on sale are black, but give out a strong purple colour, when i put it on my tank, green fluesence blinded me, even on things that where brown.

Do you guys know that fish can see this colour that we need U.V lights to see, I WISH I WAS A FISH!!!!!

 

[Psychographic]

You can get UV LED's now. I would think they would do the same using way less space.