More blacklight fun.

Did this a while back but my blacklight was just too big to make it permanent.. (maybe)
Anyway saw a CFL at home Depot today for $5 so I figured I would mess with it again.
It really makes the corals glow with the lights off. Some more than others.
I may get another one with a clip lamp and put them on the timer with the moon lights.
Here's a pic without the Blacklight and moonlights only:



And here's with the black light. Notice the Kryptonite Blasto lower left... It looks like a light itself.

 

Be careful. The spectrum of a black light can cause permanent blindness in fish.

 

Really ? How in the world did you find that out?

 

Because black lights put out a ton more pure UV rays and UV radiation than other forms of light (UV-A to be specific). This is what actually make things "glow" under them. Fish, in addition to our atmosphere, have evolved to also have the MUCH added protection of the water. When you add this highly concentrated UV ray and UV radiation to them, they can not cope, and can deteriorate rather quickly at in some cases. Blindness is common, and even cancer can occur.
This started happening all the time when "glo-fish" were all the craze. Some moron decided to actually inject dye into fish like tetras and what not to make them radically glow under black lights and market them. Then all these other problems cropped up from the lights themselves

 

ultraviolet spectrum light creates genetic mutations... it makes a "thymine dymer" which binds adjacent thymine pyrimidines together and causes them to disrupt replication of dna. In most cases this causes termination of proteins (the blindness) but it can cause death if left on for prolonged time periods...

 

Thats to bad. The tank looks awesome under them

 

Ahhh, as cool as it looks, I have heard from very reputable sources on line that it is not good for your tanks inhabitants.

 

droppin' some knowledge.

 

Yeah....what he said.

 

Well... I see this is repeated a lot on the fish forums. But what I'm wondering about is the glass on metal halides which are there to filter UV right?
Just doing some reading on it and the UVA doesn't seem to be blocked at all by the glass shields on the double ended units. They say the shields block 90% of all UV rays.. Just wandering If a 250W Halide is still getting through 10% of it's UV rays then how much different is a 13 W Blacklight that only produces UVA. 10% of all rays ... that would be a lot of UVB (which is the really bad one).
I wonder if the people that had a fish go blind were using the UVA blacklight.. as there are different blacklights.
UVA usually entertainment lights
UVB crime scene , counterfeit detection ect.
UVC sterilizer type
(there are also incadescent black lights that have almost no eye risk)

Eyes
Although an excellent source of lighting for the reef aquarium, there has been concern voiced by some aquarists over the potential ill-effects of close-range contact with metal halide lighting which is demanded by the hobby. Some individuals have noticed temporary blurred vision even after very brief exposure to metal halide lighting. This blurring of vision could be linked to photokeratitis (snow blindness) - the result of unprotected exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation.