black light?

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bethc418

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jul 3, 2011
Messages
11
Location
new york
Is it ok to have black lights instead of aquarium lights ? A friend of mine wants to set up a 30 gallon tank and wants to use black lights instead ? Ne objections ?
 
Never heard of black lights before, but I have no objections unless there will be live plants in the tank.
 
Nope don't think she planning on having any live plants just small fish mainly I wasn't so sure it was a good idea because I wasn't sure if fish would be harmed by the small amount of uv light admitted by the black lights? I wanted to make sure it was safe before she subjected her new fishes to it. Thanks for the reply :)
 
A quick google search turned up everything from them being perfectly fine, to claims of it destroying their bio-filter, to people who swear it makes fish bleed from the inside out, lol. Usually the truth lies somewhere in between. It seems there are different UV outputs, some harmful...some harmless. I'd research the particular bulb you are considering, and look into that particular one.

One thing that does concern me is that I can't find a single black-light which is designed and marketed for aquarium use. Seems like if there was no negatives that someone would be selling them. Plus, I'm afraid I'd be like turning on a black-light in a hotel room...I'm not sure I want to see the details of what's actually in there :)
 
I've never seen anyone actually say a blacklight hurt anything. They sell aquarium kits with blacklights with them... they're marketed as a glofish kit (well, they were before LED's).
 
I agree with Jonathan. I do remember my first tank, like 20 years ago in Mexico. The tank had a single bulb blacklight that made the fish colors to stand up.
No harm at all, my Angelfish lived like 5 years with me with no issues.
 
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