Does Blacklight hurt fish or inverts?

[Fishbuddie]

Would it be harmfull to my fish or inverts to add a blacklight underneath the hood along with the actinics and 50/50's. I thought it would look good at night to have only the blacklight on where certain specimens would flouress under that wavelegnth.

Don't want to kill or blind anything

[iceboxman]

Blacklights have UV emmission, which isn't good for the fish or you for that matter. I would advise against it.

[derosier]

To my knowledge, blacklights don't actually produce significant UV radiation. The spectrum is more in the deep violet, not all the way to UV wavelengths.

Incase you do have a blacklight that actually does produce UV--UV is deadly to pretty much all forms of life. It can do serious damage to living tissues. On this planet, we have a layer of ozone (O3) in our atmosphere, that absorbs a very significant percentage of the UV radiation from the sun. With out it, life wouldn't have developed (well, life as we know it anyway) on Earth. There is a reason that UV lamps are used to sterilize aquarium water after all.

At the very least, contact the manufacturer and get the spectrum graph for the lamp you intend to use. All manufacturers will have datasheets avaliable on their lamps. You can look at that spectrum, check out the bio-sci literature at your local library (probably a university library would be best), and decide if any of the output is in a danger range. Also, you might want to note that water does absorb UV energy also, and as with all lighting for aquariums, depth will make a difference.

That said...I'm not sure I would use black lights on a tank. A good actinic will get you those intense florescent colors.

[Doug1]

Not sure about the physics involved with black lights tho posts over the years generally recommend avoiding it. True actinic will cause awesome flourescence and a red bulb is cheap and good for night veiwing