A Blacklight experience
 

Anyone ever grab a black light and shine it over the corals at night? I was told that it would be very similar to actinics but WOW, what a surprise. I'm going to take some more photos tonight when the room is dark. This acan during the day is teal and red.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6909/p1080537e.jpg

Few More

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/6232/p1080543.jpg

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/259/p1080547.jpg

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/7042/p1080539.jpg

I seem to recall a Reefkeeping article a while back describing a neat photographic technique for corals using black light, very long shutter speeds and a black spatula of all things. The results were quite astonishing.

Very cool.

Yea that does look cool,I like the first one.

Buy one of those cigarette lighters with a blue LED light on the end.
Make sure the room is totally dark; no indirect lighting coming from outside or in the house.

It is 5 times the experience you saw but don't trip and fall on anything.

Some corals fluoresce. Some look brown by day and under ordinary reef lights but not under the blue LED

When that kind of light hits a coral, the coral produces and "enzyme" that causes the florescence.

In September last year it was discovered that some fish fluoresce.

If you have an old T8 light system at home, you can go to Home Depot (at least in my area), and they sell Black Light bulbs in that size.

Thanks for showing your pics.. I have always been curious to see what it would look like.

The only problem using the black light tubes is the very high UV emissions it produces. Don't leave black lighting on for long or you'll give your inhabitants a sunburn or worse.

Fluorescent black lights filter out harmful UV-B and UV-C and only output low powered UV-A which is virtually harmless, it would take an awfully long time for any damage to be caused by such a lamp. Your typical aquarium lights produce much more harmful UV radiation. Stick one arm under your halide and the other under a black light for 30min, you'll see what I mean :lol:

Ya, I used to LIVE with black lights on all the time in my room. never hurt me LOL,