moon lighting

[1152 Flying Fish]

Im using a 25w black light as my moon lighting. i thought it would be a cheaper solution. is this ok? what exactly does moon lighting acomplish anyway?

ill try to post what it looks like later.

 

[Opcn]

Moonlight ing has three purposes.

The first is to make a little cash on the side

The second is to alow viewing for noctournal critters, so we can see them, and they can see around. without moonlighting late at night we can't view our fish without bothering them, unless you have two setups on different sceduals that is.

and fnally moonlight helps certain animals (namely stony corals) with there cercadian rythms. If you are very good with lighting you can set up computerised timers that ajust daylight intensity and duration as well as moonlight intensity and duration and get your corals to spawn twice a year, it would take alot of work and knowhow but the people who made the biodome managed to make it happen. if they can manage to swim around for six months or so in the larval stage and not get caught in the impeller our eaten then find the right kind of red coraline algea you can get yourself some colonies which can be sold for a good deal of money once they grow on a bit. But again its alot of work with computers and mooncharts

 

[bob`_your_dog]

HHmm, i'm also using a black light as a moon light, looks great! But i leave mine on 24/7, cause i was using it in my FW tank for plants and i haven't bothered to set up a reverse timer yet, do they help corals at all with their UV? But i've also heard that they damage fishes eyes and can even burn their skin but i dont think they are really that strong at all.

 

[Navarre]

The term black light is new to me so i cant comment on what this light is or what it can do.
I use LED blues for my moonlights and these come on when the main lights go off. I would not be without them now as they not only give me just enough light to see the fish, it also gives just enough light for the fish to see by.

When i had my smaller tank i had a fantastic copperband butterfly that i managed to coax onto forzen foods after weeks of experimentation with just about anything i could buy! After this it would feed readily and became a real stunner. Even though it fed readily on frozen foods, it didnt curbe its desire for hunting down pods at night as they crawled over the livercok. I would often see it moving around the roxks in and out of the led beams hunting for the odd stray pod.
Tragedy struck when i failed to turn the LEDs on one night (my LEds were not on a timer) and i went to bed leaving the tank in darkness. When i saw the tank the next day my wonderful butterlfy was now half eaten by my Atlantic Anemone I can only assume the Copperband went hunting again as usual and swam right into the waiting arms of this Anemone. I returned the Anemone to the shop as i didnt want this to happen again but it didnt bring back that beautiful fish. Only then did i realise just how important it was (for my tank anyway) to have a form of lighting 24/7
I now have a marine beta and i have yet to see this fish eat! It been in the tank for 3 months now so its obviously eating something! It doesn hunt at night so i assume its cathig pods in the same fashion that the copperband did. Without these lights im sure its job would be far harder. Its also very rare for a reef in real life to be thrown into absolute darkness. The skies are usually clear overhead and the moonlight wil filter through onto the reef almost every night.

 

[leon]

I think black lights are basically like U.V tubes. I also use LED's which i fitted into my arcadia unit ( a real pain in the arse, believe me!), it just gives out enough light light to make it somewhat natural (as you can expect!)
leon

 

[Navarre]

is it an acutal UV bulb? if so then i would be really concerned about putting a light like that over the fish and corals. UV sterilisers have their lights covered for very good reasons,... Protection.

The only light i have known to be safe to use over a tank like that is an actinic and this type of tube is too strong really for moonlights

 

[bob`_your_dog]

I think they have some sort of UV power, but i dont think it's UV-B, thats why i thought that they may actually be good for corals. But i assume that fish are exposed to uv light in the wild, as the sun shines. So i dont see what harm these lights which emit next to nothing can do, if you stared at it all day, you wouldn't even know it was on, as it emits light mostly outa our range, but that may pose a threat i suppose, hhhmmm the plot thikens

 

[fraservet]

Black lights are the lights used in nightclubs etc. to make things glow.
They are ultraviolet, but are not in the same league as UV sterilisers.
They don't cause people any harm, but I believe they aren't good for fish.

 

[bob`_your_dog]

They aren't actually exactly the same. Very simular tho, the black light i have i bought from my lfs and is designed for freshwater plants. The UV lights in clubs use a different type of UV, but black lights do make your teeth shine, so i suppose i confused

 

[Fishy411]

well i know a guy who did a little experiment just for fun and ran only black lights on his tank. All the corals died. Most people just use blue LED light.

 

[Navarre]

Eek!

Im glad i got the LEDs )

 

[bob`_your_dog]

But if you only run black lights ofcourse they would die, cause they need light thats outa thier range. Do you think they would of died with his other lights running at the same time? I mean it's like running with only led's ofcoure they will die. So i wouldn't be to glad Navarre

 

[Navarre]

Well I know for sure that the LEDs dont do any harm as they arent UV etc. And i only run the LEDs at night, during the day the halides are on so the corals get the light they need., My main reason for the moonlights is not for any chemical or nutritional benefit for the fish or corals really, its purely for asthetic reasons and so the fish can see at night as it seems to make the fish less jumpy at night.

 

[bob`_your_dog]

I suppose, but i use my black light purly for asthetics aswell. I thought they might have some other benifits to tho, i been running them 24/7 cause they seem to be workinh, i have no corals yet, but my LR has really florished with all sorts of things and colours.

 

[Opcn]

while it looks good its bad for your fishes eyes and your own. There are only two types of UV light UV A and UV B black lights produce both, the only question is how much they produce, sterilisers produce more, much more, but regular bulbs are still bad and heres why. Your eyes dialate when there is no visible light, same thing happens with fish but much slower, now when your eye is dialated it allows more UV light in so your eyes are setup to recieve much more UV light than they could even if you stared directly at the sun, the most powerful UV source in nature aside from maybe lightning strikeing a cinibar deposit twice a few minutes apart (very rare). Dont turn on the UV light for more than an hour a day, you and your fish are both getting too much UV as it is.