Holy crap the glow.

[Scribe]

So I just got my LEDs, and checked them out just in front of the tank. I have to hang them still, but holy crap the blue channel, or moon lights alone. What a amazing change in the corals appearance. I'm starting to see where these colors are coming from in some of these pictures you see of people's coral. I always wondered how people got them to pop so much. With just the blues it's like a black light. I don't think it's practical to have really, but man what a cool effect.

 

[Scribe]

By the way thank you Ocean Review for the great deal. I couldn't be happier. Curious to see them with the normal settings over the tank.

 

[larangcon]

Now, we need to some pictures

 

[mcarroll]

With just the blues it's like a black light.

You know it's funny you mention that. I've always heard that blacklights aren't right for reef tanks for some reason.

After digging mine out for halloween I decided to check it out through my spectrometer and it's got a ~405nm peak and a ~450nm peak. Perfect for a reef!! I guess maybe the question is how many would be needed since they are normal-output bulbs...

-Matt

 

[Scribe]

I'll post some pictures once I get the lights installed. It really is just like a black light.

 

[Scribe]

Trying to take some pictures and with the iPhone it's just totally washed out blue. I'll try to get the other camera out and play around with it see if I can get a few good shots of some of the GLOW.

 

[MondoBongo]

You know it's funny you mention that. I've always heard that blacklights aren't right for reef tanks for some reason.

After digging mine out for halloween I decided to check it out through my spectrometer and it's got a ~405nm peak and a ~450nm peak. Perfect for a reef!! I guess maybe the question is how many would be needed since they are normal-output bulbs...

-Matt

i tried running a blacklight on my tank a while back. it is a 75 gallon. the light was nowhere near strong enough to penetrate the water, no matter where i mounted it. i even tried behind/in front of the tank to no avail. it just didn't have the energy to get through the water column.

 

[mcarroll]

Just WAGing it based on most modern T5 fixtures, I'm gonna guess you'd need at least 4-6 black light tubes if they were going to serve as the blues in your tank. (Haven't looked to see if there are HO or VHO black lights.)

405nm light is barely visible though...very possible there was enough of that, just wasn't very apparent. Even with a bunch of straight 405nm bulbs I bet it wouldn't appear bright to us at all.

-Matt