Neptune Aquatics

Blacklights?

Gomer

Gomer

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T12 VHO's rock for fluorescing. This got me thinking about the good ol blacklight. Has anyone tried using a NO or ODNO Blacklight for a tank for color purposes?
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_light

Safety

While "black lights" do produce light in the UV range, their spectrum is confined to the longwave UVA region. UVA is considered the safest of the three spectra of UV light. It is the higher energy (shortwave) light in the UVB and UVC range that is responsible for the DNA damage that leads to skin cancer. UVA light is much lower in energy and does not cause sunburn. UVA is capable of causing damage to collagen fibers, so it does have the potential to accelerate skin aging and cause wrinkles. UVA can also destroy vitamin A in the skin.

UVA light can cause DNA damage, but not directly like UVB and UVC. Due to its longer wavelength it is absorbed less and reaches deeper skin layers (the leather skin), where it produces reactive chemical intermediates, such as hydroxyl and oxygen radicals, which in turn can damage DNA and is a high melanoma (a dangerous skin cancer) risk. The strength of a black light in comparison to sunlight is minuscule, so it is doubtful that UVA light poses any significant health risks. The weak output of black lights should not cause DNA damage or cellular mutations the way sunlight can.
Click to expand...

The couple articles that came up in google say that blacklights are so weak, the UV emitted doesn't hurt anything.

This all assuming UV is what your worried about...
 
I worked in theatrical lighting for a spell (ever see a UV Projector in play?), I know them rather well (and what amount of UV is put out). It's not UV and wikipedia isn't going to tell you what they do to corals :) Search for others posting about it. Sanjay, Dana Riddle and a few others have commented on it. In fact when I get home I believe one or two of the books in my library reference it.
 
I tried using a blacklight(the type used to find pet stains) but the amount of florescence was minimal compared to the use of other light sources.

I think any blu-ish light source will allow you to showcase coral florescence, but I do like LEDs the most. In order to truly appreciate this phenomenon I recommend observing them behind a yellow-ish filter(ie. yellow -> safety googles, projector transparency...).

Chk out this website, www.nightsea.com The BlueStar flashlight works great.
 
On the night see thing, do you really have to go and spend $140 on their glasses and flashlight or will any yellow tinted, blue flashlight work?
 
I purchased a pair of yellow safety goggles from a local dollar store and it works fine. As for the BlueStar it works great if you plan to use it on the go or if you like to have a movable light source to direct at a specific colony. It is also handy for finding new recruits or discovering other glowing critters.
 
Not to hijack the post but how about the computer modding light UV, would it be similar to the black light?
I snatched an LED off my son, came with a BK/Macdonalds meal when Indiana Jones came out, it's a UV LED I believe and the colors at night are amazingly weird, I replaced the BC stock LED with this one and has a very purplish color on the rock.
I have a crappy camera...
 
blacklights IIRC peaks 380nm or so range, so while it is UV light by definition, and it is invisible to us, it's very weak UV that won't to damage to humans. That said, can't imagine it'd be terribly useful for corals at all. Maybe in a complete dark room you can shine it to get some fluorescence but leave the black lights for the clubs :D
 
[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=6348.msg81127#msg81127 date=1234574316]
blacklights IIRC peaks 380nm or so range, so while it is UV light by definition, and it is invisible to us, it's very weak UV that won't to damage to humans. That said, can't imagine it'd be terribly useful for corals at all. Maybe in a complete dark room you can shine it to get some fluorescence but leave the black lights for the clubs :D

[/quote]

At night in a dark room/club where it's mainly black light, they do cause damage (from what the government and my DR told me :) ). We were regulated by IIRC the FCC or FDA? (it was an odd one that always made me go "huh") on exposure. They also regulated the use of lasers at our events and we had to comply with fairly strict positioning rules (no crowd scans ;) ). I do know they create eye strain, I can vouch for that :)
 
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