Black Lights?

[got bait?]

With all of the bright and neon inverts, what would a tank look like with a black light? Is it even safe for the tank. I know moon lights look cool, are they one and the same?

 

[got bait?]

After reading previous posts on this topic, I now don't think this is a safe thing to do with fish, at least it's questionable to say the least. However, I do not have any fish. All inverts. There is all this talk about fish being harmed, but what about the inverts with eyes. Are their eyes simple and not complex, therefore not being affected the same as a fishes eye.

 

[TheMadNucleus]

My guess on this is that showering inverts with high levels of UV is 1.) not natural and 2.) likely to be damaging. Yes in the short term, it may make things look pretty, but UV levels of radiation are dangerous at the cellular level - after all that is what we use to kill micro-organisms in our tanks via sterilizers.

Generally, I think one should aim for providing as natural a level of light as possible for their tank inhabitants

BTW Moonlights are typically powered by LEDS and are not the same thing as Blacklights, LED's produce light almost solely in the visible spectrum - Blacklights produce huge amounts of light in the non-visible ultravilolet spectrum. BTW - the reason things glow is UV is that the energy at the atomic level is enough to cause electrons to jump to a new shell, when they return to their original shell they give off the lost energy in photons.

Just my thoughts on this.

Tom

 

[got bait?]

I haven't read anything on cellular damage other than retnal. Just wondered if the different types of eyes were affected differently. Looks like someone has done their homework, that's what I'm doing before I make the big leap to a large reef tank. Moonlights seem to deffinately be the safer way to go, and their cheaper as well. Thanks for input.

 

[Grumpy]

I looked for moonlights and was suprised by the high cost so I went to menards and bought a 6' rope light and put around the inside of my canopy of my ninety gallon tank. I went with blue,(they also have red, white pruple) and it looks great. Just enough light to see whays going on in there. And it only cost $4.00.

Grumpy

 

[fishfreek]

Just put them under an actinic bulb and you will have very near the same effects of a black light.

 

[got bait?]

Since discovered exactly that. I took the 96W actinic fixture off my 100gal (currently only houses freshwater fish and don't use the actinic bulb) and just layed it over the top of my 12 gal nano (which is only a 24W actinic) and the whole tank just lit up. I kbew the things I have in there are colorful, but the bigger actinic just made the whole tank light up. Realllllly nice, exactly the effect I was looking for. I will have two 96W actinics and two 250W MH when up and running. Should look pretty nice. Thanks

 

[patryuji]

There is a variety of shrimp that has the most complex eye and vision of any animal we have yet discovered...so their eyes might not be as simple as you would think.

If something glows from the UV it is emitting that energy and there is thus less energy absorbed to cause intercellular problems. UV is a necessary component of life for some animals and when you consider that there is nearly 1350Watts per square meter of light energy striking the surface of the earth in equatorial (tropical) parts of the world. Of course if you are talking about using this at night (when normally there is no UV exposure and any damage from exposure during the day would be healed) then you would have to check the spectrum of your daytime lighting to find out how much UV exposure the animals are subjected to during the day. There is also the question of whether the bulb produces long or short wave UV. Short wave is more damaging higher energy light that is normally filtered out by the atmosphere fairly well. This type of lighting will definitely hurt the animals. Long wave (UV-A) is fairly safe. It is difficult to give yourself a sunburn with UV-A and you can't kill bacteria with UV-A either.

This reminds me a lfs here has some of the genetically altered glow fish under a blacklight in a big show tank. They were fascinating to look at.

 

[TheMadNucleus]

Most black lights that are comercially available produce UV-a, UV-b and even UV-c. However, the phosphorous coating and the tinted black glass are designed to filter most of the UV-b and UV-c rays leaving mostly UV-a. Most UV regardless of its specific bandwidth is filtered by the atmosphere (largely the ozone layer - what we have left anyway ) And even more is filtered by the water in which our Marine creatures live. Therefore, it seems prudent to try to avoid bombarding our reluctant guests with more UV then they typically would be exposed to. It's not likely that this is good for them.


Quote from research site:

Both UVB and UVA radiation can give rise to ROS-related point mutations (e.g. G to T) and crude genomic alterations (e.g. deletions) which may not be recognized as caused by UV radiation. Copyright 2002 S. Karger AG, Basel

UVA's do not heat the skin, but penetrate in-depth and provoke irreversible damage to the skin::


Intolerance reactions and age spots on the face, décolleté and hands.;

"Actinic" ageing which accelerates the skin's natural ageing process (formation of deep wrinkles, loss of firmness)


However, the ultimate danger is when the skin capital, under the strain of excessive exposure to the sun, runs out. It can no longer assure the defence of DNA of the skin's cells. A carcinogenic process can therefore be triggered.

The above qoutes are from PubMed and Vichey Med


Much other research indicates that while UV-a is not as dangerous as UV-b both are unatural and can cause damage at the cellular level.

So, as I mentioned before, I'd leave the balck lights in the lab

If something glows from the UV it is emitting that energy and there is thus less energy absorbed to cause intercellular problems.

The fact that an organism is glowing, i.e. giving off energy and therefore less is absorbed, I don't think is exactly correct. Because in order for the atom to release energy in the form of an emitted photon it must first absorb energy to 'kick' an electron(s) into a higher shell (for example shell K to shell L). The energy that was originally absorbed by the atom is then released when the electron returns to it's original shell in the atom. This results in the emmission of a photon - this is exactly the process which causes huge problems in our DNA and Cells when we are exposed to UV. Generally, though, we are not exposed to enough to make us glow


Tom