Bang Guy's Latest Experiment
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bang guy
Moderator
With the results from Phase I it would seem that Black lights don't quickly kill corals. I anticipate that the Corals I listed will do just as well or slightly better with the Phase II lighting as they would have done with only the two Daylight bulbs and no Black light.
I should know in a month if Black light bulbs will kill your corals or not. The corals not doing well right now would have died a week or two ago had there been no light at all so apparently they are able to utilize some of the light just not enough to survive. If they don't recover then I will believe that they were actually damaged by the UVA.
I should know in a month if Black light bulbs will kill your corals or not. The corals not doing well right now would have died a week or two ago had there been no light at all so apparently they are able to utilize some of the light just not enough to survive. If they don't recover then I will believe that they were actually damaged by the UVA.
reefraff
Active Member
Bang
If you have or can barrow a copy of the book "The complete book of the Marine Aquarium" by Vincent B. Hargreaves check out the lighting section there. It was the first book I got before switching over to a reef. I don't know what the guy's actual qualifications are but his book has some interesting info in it.
This guy claims that UV-A light is important to coral growth but the zooxanthellae act as a filter for the UV light so critters without zooxanthellae will be damaged by the UV light. That might explain the Xenia but why the Anemone or orange mushroom? I wonder if certain color corals would do better than others under the Black light. This could be a never ending experiment.
If you have or can barrow a copy of the book "The complete book of the Marine Aquarium" by Vincent B. Hargreaves check out the lighting section there. It was the first book I got before switching over to a reef. I don't know what the guy's actual qualifications are but his book has some interesting info in it.
This guy claims that UV-A light is important to coral growth but the zooxanthellae act as a filter for the UV light so critters without zooxanthellae will be damaged by the UV light. That might explain the Xenia but why the Anemone or orange mushroom? I wonder if certain color corals would do better than others under the Black light. This could be a never ending experiment.
cincyreefer
Active Member
Originally posted by reefraff
Bang
If you have or can barrow a copy of the book "The complete book of the Marine Aquarium" by Vincent B. Hargreaves check out the lighting section there. It was the first book I got before switching over to a reef. I don't know what the guy's actual qualifications are but his book has some interesting info in it.
This guy claims that UV-A light is important to coral growth but the zooxanthellae act as a filter for the UV light so critters without zooxanthellae will be damaged by the UV light. That might explain the Xenia but why the Anemone or orange mushroom? I wonder if certain color corals would do better than others under the Black light. This could be a never ending experiment.
Yes, exactly... The corals that didnt do well, IMO, are simply just not getting enough light. Doesn't matter if it was under black light or the same wattage "daylight bulbs". By defintiion, PAR is only measured between 400nm and 700 nm. But as the graph below shows, there is usuable photosynthetic available radiation below 400 nm, it just is not measured. The only way the uv would hurt them if you got bulbs that actually put out alot of UV, or if you had the corals within inches of the bulb. Of course UV-B might have a better possibility of damaging them, but UV-C is the range I would worry about.
pyro
Active Member
sorry for the dumb question... just realized what the end result would be. To justify my dumb question slightly though, the reason I suggested to test that would be to notice they rate at which they die. They might survive just as well as the corals under the black light.
Never really thought of the end effects though - they die. Sorry!
Never really thought of the end effects though - they die. Sorry!
bang guy
Moderator
Well, here it is two months later.
All of the original corals recovered fully under a single Black light and two daylight bulbs. The Tulip Anemone I though had perished has reappeared and is looking healthy.
My current assumption is that the Black light didn't harm anything but didn't give sufficient PAR for the corals unable to flouresce green. Protopalythoa and the Candy Cane have reproduced (fission) and look completely normal. The Orange mushroon has also come back.
My opinion is that black light is fine for making corals glow but doesn't offer useful light to those that don't glow green. Actinic lighting is a better mechanism to get the "glow" because it also offers light in a wavelength useful to other corals that don't flouresce.
Another downside to Black Lights is that they make the water flouresce slightly and it looks cloudy.
Bang
All of the original corals recovered fully under a single Black light and two daylight bulbs. The Tulip Anemone I though had perished has reappeared and is looking healthy.
My current assumption is that the Black light didn't harm anything but didn't give sufficient PAR for the corals unable to flouresce green. Protopalythoa and the Candy Cane have reproduced (fission) and look completely normal. The Orange mushroon has also come back.
My opinion is that black light is fine for making corals glow but doesn't offer useful light to those that don't glow green. Actinic lighting is a better mechanism to get the "glow" because it also offers light in a wavelength useful to other corals that don't flouresce.
Another downside to Black Lights is that they make the water flouresce slightly and it looks cloudy.
Bang
shawnts106
Member
VERY INTERESTING FINDINGS BANG!!! All in all I would say it was worth the experiment!!!... Interesting that the UV rays didnt have any damaging side effects... I would have thought they would have!!!..... Well thanks from all of us for the reply... again very interesting!
sergeant
Member
This has been a very interesting subject.
I guess my conclusion to this is that every coral has its own lighting needs, weather is called UV, black, bright white, blue or actinic some corals need and absorb more light than other just to survive while other inverts such as anemones need light as a pro-active source for food.
I have also learned that if I own a plexi glass tank is not recommended to place a black light under the hood even if it makes the coral colors look brighter.
I guess my conclusion to this is that every coral has its own lighting needs, weather is called UV, black, bright white, blue or actinic some corals need and absorb more light than other just to survive while other inverts such as anemones need light as a pro-active source for food.
I have also learned that if I own a plexi glass tank is not recommended to place a black light under the hood even if it makes the coral colors look brighter.
lion_crazz
Active Member
This experiment has been awesome!! I have personally enjoyed following it, and you (along with all the posters giving helpful info) deserve much credit for the time and effort put into it!
popnfrresh
Member
I hate to bring a dead topic alive but, the uva light that the uv bulbs give off should not damage the corals, as we saw. The uvb and uvc are more damaging but the water and the ozone should filter 99.9% if not all of them.
So the conlclusion that you got was the blacklight did not harm them. What if a combination of 1 blacklight and the rest actinic and normal lighting. The blacklight would be used to flouresce the corals and stuff.
very good work bang.
So the conlclusion that you got was the blacklight did not harm them. What if a combination of 1 blacklight and the rest actinic and normal lighting. The blacklight would be used to flouresce the corals and stuff.
very good work bang.