Bi-Weekly Discussion of the Week: Moonlights!!!

[Geoff]

This topic seems to come up a lot. what are moonlights, are they any good, what purpose do people use them for, how bright should they really be, what colour is best and for what purpose?

Wow, there are a lot of areas to delve into with this one.

G~

[Reefdude5]

There surely are Geoff! I'm honored to be first, well, I have 2 2' moonlights by Dr. something(My memory kinda goes blank a lot). They are two black lights, correct me if I'm wrong. They are 2" wide and have silver reflectors on the front face whcih help utilize the light. I really like the blue which it gives off. I haven't noticed any detrimental effects. I usually only plug them in periodically, only when I have guests over or just really want to look at it at night. I bought them for over 120$ each, so i think I got royally ripped off, unless they make acros double in size overnight! Well, I'd love to hear everyone else's opinion. I would just like to say that I'm hooked on them because it's just like Mh's, only bluer, I love the reflecting, "halide look"!

[mabblizzard]

i have them also and only use them to watch he tank at night or to show off to guests because i really don't know what they are for lol "new to the hobby" i mean obssesion. i have some pictures of my tank with them on in my gallery if anyone would like to see what the tank looks like with them on. they cam with my pc.

[Nafe]

I dont see why people would fork out that kind of money for them.

In my opinion just let the tank go dark, why spend money trying to do something that is unecessary.

[Mafiaman]

Stepping away from the money issue,
Is there any benaficial effects on the tank/system/live stock

Or is it just for us minor gods to view our captives?

[icebear]

well, if the natural moonlight is supposed to have an affect on the tank critters, wouldn't just leaving them onn for X amount of hours be just as useless as not having them at all....i mean, leaving on a certain wattage light on for 8 hours every night for months on end isn't going to simulate the moon too well anyway. the moon varies in 'brightness' over the period of what 28 (or is it 30or so? *shrug*) days, starts out small and then goes to full and then wanes again, plus weather patterns and cloud cover would alter the intensity of light as well. So if you want to really simulate the way the moon glows, (you'd have to imitate the way the sun fades and the moon brightens by having your lights automated to go off in a series one at a time and the moon lights to come on opposite), the way it waxes and wanes through its cycle and then you'd have to throw in some random dark times for cloudy weather perhaps....

but this could be overthinking and it makes it sound like a PITA...btu my thoughts are that if the moonlight does (and it does) affect the lives of ocean critters, it would have to be imitated on a level with synthetic sea salt to have a beneficial effect...

or am i WAY off?

as far as using the lights just to see the tank in a 'different light' i think its cool, its one of the many things i simply havn't gotten to think about actually doing but would if i could ever get all the other things i want to do done.

[mabblizzard]

i paid 205 for my pc that come with the moon lights already atached to the fixture

[Geoff]

the moons cycle is used by many of our captive critters to signal breeding times. in order to use a moonlight for this purpose a variable intensity light must be used. the moon does change phase over the course of its cycle.

does it really need to rise and set though? how many times have you seen the moon out during the day?

G~

[Pirate]

I gotta tell you that when I first saw these things it was about 1 month prior to IMAC last year. I am lucky enough to know one of the major manufacturers personally. We argued the benefit of moonlight to corals and fish. Logging about 900 dives and many of them night dives, my argument was that I never saw moonlight reach depths deeper than 6 maybe 10 feet. He explained to me that the beneficial light is not visible to the human eye. The blue tone is simply a "bonus" for us landfolks.
I have three of them (2 watt leds) in my 125 reef. They are on timers and stay on till approx 1 a.m. and come back on at 6a.m.
I have not noticed any substantial difference however I am now able to view lower light corals after dark. The polyp extension on my white/purple lemnalia is amazing, as is the tubinaria. I don't believe them to be a nessesity however, I enjoy them,I believe them to be of some benefit and again a matter of personal preference.

[wanareef]

Ok, so you guy's use the "Blue moon light" to view your tank at night. Has any one noticed that with the blue's on, any of the fish come back out and are active? Polyps out? I have heard some guy's use the red light for viewing during the night and not distubing the "creatures". Anyone using these? (I know I'm off the subj)

[Mafiaman]

That is a good question, Does one color disrupt more than the other??

[MiddletonMark]

I dunno. I did a DIY LED moonlight a while back ... and that's the only way I'd do them. Pretty easy project ... got the LED's from a guy who had bought a huge load [$1/ each] ... the powersupply to run it was the most expensive part [$13 @ Ratshack] + resistors, wire, heatshrink tubing, and solder. Hooked it up to a potentiometer [dimmer] that only does about 5-6 `steps' from zero to full ... but at least some sort of waxing/waning.

I'd avoid the RS Led's ... not as powerful as the ones I got [though not sure where to find more]. LED's were cool from the fact they give that MH shimmer effect [had to aim them upwards at reflector so they didn't `spotlight' too much, spread better].

Anyway - I didn't really notice any change in corals. Is kind of nice to plug in from time to time, especially with guests over for night-time viewing [or when up at 3am].
But no change in corals IMO, the fish [other than clowns] didn't seem to even notice it - but was nice to catch the shrimp out shrimping around, emerald crabs too.
Presently unplugged ... was a worthy DIY, and I do re-plug it in some nights when I'm up late ... but I'd actually NOT want my corals to spawn. Easy enough to frag, and I don't think my 58 would like it with a tank full of spawn in there = pollution.

Not sure if I have a point here, but that's the usual

[Geoff]

MiddletonMark- are you saying you have red LED's now? or did you not go with red because the RS ones were not bright enough?

wanareef- this is dead on the subject at hand. you will see.

there are two main reasons to use moonlights:

1) you all just can not get enough of looking at your tank during the day, so you gotta also see them at night.

2) you want spawning events.

where do you all sit?

G~

[MiddletonMark]

I have mostly blue LED's on my tank [from what I understand, close to `moonlight underwater K values] ... with one white. I suppose Red would be best for night-viewing ... but it seems they're the proper amount of `dim' that nothing really minds.

I had two `dead' ones of the ones I planned to use ... so I bought 2 at RS to hook up instead. Ended up leaving them off, as testing showed that their intensity was much much less than the ones I had gotten elsewere. Would have required double the # of LED's ... or close.



As far as which one:

#1 ... as spawning = lots of decaying matter in my tank. My corals frag fine, I prefer to spread them that way [+ growth]. Not that it wouldn't be cool at least once ... but I don't know if I'd want regularly ...

I prefer to have nighttime viewing ...

[Doug1]

some of the controllers used to time lights, simulate waves with pump on/off etc have a setting for moonlight. Bill E wrote software for one of them that synched moon phases with the coordinates of your location