Blacklight fish

morextremist

AC Members
Nov 16, 2005
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Does anyone from experience if certain fish will show reflective colors under blacklight in their body or fins?
 
blacklight makes white clothing turn blue right? Maybe it could turn a white molly blue?
 
don't do it. not only won't it work, but it's dangerous. here's a simple explanation:

first, fish exhibit color (anything exhibits color) because the full spectrum of visible wavelength light is absorbed except those colors which you see. in other words, a red fish looks red because its scales absorb all the colors of the spectrum except red. a blue fish looks blue becaue it absorbs all colors except blue ... and so on.

black light is a form of UV which has none of the visible colors of the spectrum (you can see a very minor bit of purple due to the wave length). thus none of the visible wavelength can be reflected back to your eye and the result is simply that the fish will look black. a white fish might look vaguely purple .. again, that minor bit of purple UV wavelength.

black light works to reflect ultra violet .. what you see when you're dancing at the club is the reflected ultraviolet of fabric whitener. do your fish wear shirts that have been washed in detergent containing 'whiteners'?

lastly and mosst importantly .. UV light can/will damage your eyes and there is research to show that certain kinds of UV can damage a fishes eye as well.
 
I've seen someone with a blacklight in his tank, and they didn't look like the usual blacklights that I've seen in labs. This was a light bulb, which leads me to believe that it is a dark purple incandescent bulb! If this is the case, I'm pretty sure it's not actual UV, but simply violet. But even there, I don't know if I'd take a chance.
 
i've not seen an "incandescent" UV bulb and don't believe they exist. a standard bulb with a 'purple/violet' colored exterior is not UV, not a blacklight and basically just a purple bulb.
 
blacklights are not dangerous to fish. They have no more UV output than any other bulb. They just have output only in that range.

It will not bother fish at all. However, you probably wont get the results your looking for. Every light colored piece of 'debris' floating around in the water will be illuminated, and the water will look quite cloudy.
 
try a strobe light, more interesting result as long as it wouldnt harm the fish in any way
 
A strobe light will give tha look of a rave party at 3 AM. Wow,,, just hope the fish don't do drugs :) :coffee:
 
well if their hopped up on somthing remove the aquatic frogs from the tank :dance:
 
Could a fish go toad licking? :p: That makes me :sick:

Yeah... brooo.... gooood...

Let's get back to bussiness. I had installed this UV black light in a 20 gallon tank with cardenal and neon tetras and the result was not good at all. I was expecting for some kind of glow-in-the-night neon color, but I only saw their shadows.

Wasted money.

*** Edited for typos
 
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