U/V induced coloration

[gman0526]

After reading this thread http://www.coralforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=5452 I remembered that I've seen other people using another method to bring back color to corals (specially SPS). This is by subjecting corals to u/v lightning.

the premise is that pigments in the coral react to protect the coral from different levels of u/v radiation, kinda like sunblock.

Has anybody tried this? If you have, can you tell us about your experience?

[soundengineer]

I actually have a buddy who put some UV lighting on his tank....
he used to grow roses for competition...and he doesnt any more...but he still had th elights..so he decided to try it on his tank...
he said he saw a noticeable improvement in colors and growth...but he is using some pretty high power UV lights...on a 55 gallon tank... not sure how much UV it really takes to see any difference...but its expensive as hell to get really good UV lights like he has....not sure its worth the money

just my $.02

[mojoreef]

Man usig UV on corals is really riding the line, one little mistake and you can ill the coral in a heart beat. The japanese are the ones that you will find use this method to a point (with halogen lighting) but again its something I would not touch.
You dont need UV lighting to color up your corals George, the UV protectorant pigments you are refering to will forum with the use of MH bulbs that have a good light wave in the violet zone, like a 10K ushio or XM, also bulbs that have an early spike in the blue spectrum such as a 20 radium or xm.


hope it helps


Mike

[gman0526]

I'm about to set up a 150W retrofit with a 15K bulb, I beleive this should be enough to bring out good coloration from my corals in my 30 L. Is like you say Mike that would be riding the edge and i could see a bleaching incident just waiting to happen using this method. Just wanted to see if anybody had used it b4 :-D

[mojoreef]

Oh yea that should color up corals no problem, just work on keeping the nutrients low and you should be just fine


Mike

[MoonSoft]

WOW never thought of that, you know though if you have ever seen a pacific reef flat durring low tide these corals heads are out of the water a little bit each day... at least the ones on the top reef. i might try to simulate this in my tank and see if it does anything.. of course i will make sure and do it with some frags not entire colonies, also i'll have to keep the water moving over the tips to keep them from drying out.. not sure if that is a problem, but UV would make sense, after speaking at great length with Craig one of the tech guru's from "Ushio" he says that one of the best things about their bulbs are the high peak in the 420-480nm range, he also said
DO NOT BUY THE USHIO 20k's!!! NOT YET.... they are sold under general lighting and do not have the color peaks for growth, thats why the XM's did better, but they will be coming out with a 14K and a 20K growth bulb that may be of sime intrest.

[MoonSoft]

he says sometime this year.. i will be testing these when he gets a few...

[BoldAsBrass]

I use different lighting in my tank because of the many species. Some react and look better with different bulbs. Peace, karen

[MarineScientist19]

actually using Strict UVB lamps are ok but UVA Will eventually become harmfull something like desert-glo which is 13% UVB the UVA is moslty filtered out by water, i use a desert glo to simulate sun intensity and for the dummies UVC will damage just about everything biological incuding yourself
but of course im not talking about MH just Soft HI-FLO's