Moon Lights?

[sweetrav18]

I wanted to know the difference, regarding appearance/effectiveness, of white versus blue moon lights? ANyone?

[lwkimbley]

Corals and softies absorb blue light easier and the white lights (I've tried it) drive the fish nuts.
Go with a 5mm LED
4000mcd
470nm Wavelength
this is the closest to the moon due to wave lengths.

I wanted to know the difference, regarding appearance/effectiveness, of white versus blue moon lights? ANyone?

[lwkimbley]

cool Huh?

[The R/C Man]

Hey!

I use a white LED and it looks great. It doesn't seem to bother my fish either. I am curious though. If moon light is just the light reflected from the sun then how is it a different spectrum?

[lwkimbley]

It would depend on the depth of the coral I guess some receive more white light some receive more blue light.

[sweetrav18]

Maybe a dum question but here goes....while the white moon lights give that cool blue shimmering light you see in the above pic? if not does anyone have a pic with them on!

[Ninong]

I wanted to know the difference, regarding appearance/effectiveness, of white versus blue moon lights? ANyone?

My fixture came with a 25w blue incandescent lamp as the "moonlight." The reason it's an incandescent lamp and not an LED or a fluorescent lamp, is because the intensity of incandescent lamps can be controlled to simulate natural moonlight during the various phases of the moon.

I'm not sure what you mean by "effectiveness?" If you are asking if it makes any difference to the corals, clams and other zooxanthellate animals that we keep whether we use a white lamp or a blue lamp to simulate moonlight, then my answer is no, I don't believe it does as long as the intensity of the illumination is the same. It would make a difference to the fish if you chose red light, but I doubt that they will perceive any difference between 50 lux from a blue lamp vs. 50 lux from a white lamp. Like most marine animals, the fish wouldn't see the red light at all.

Getting back to you question of "effectiveness." The only "effectiveness" provided by a "moonlight" is related to its ability to reproduce the natural environment. If your moonlight does not replicate natural conditions, then it is simply a nightlight for your personal enjoyment, nothing else. Moonlight has no effect on photosynthesis because the zooxanthellae are in respiration mode at night. However, if your moonlight is too intense, it might not be helpful and if it is on every night, all night, then it might confuse the hell out of the animals in your tank. I'm sure they would get used to it but they might wonder what was going on.

Moonlights are popular because it is a well known fact that the phases of the moon, in combination with water temperature, affect spawning. The GBR has mass spawing every November that is tied to the full moon. Whether you really want this for your reef aquarium depends on a lot of things, such as how large your tank is and how attentive you are to the potential for problems associated with mass spawning in a confined aquarium. (Just as an aside here, reproduction in our species -- H. sapiens -- is still tied to lunar cycles.)

Most people who set up what they call moonlights over their aquariums, are merely setting up night lights for their amusement. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether you choose a white lamp or a blue lamp if you adjust the intensity so that it appears the same to your eye. I think its easier to get the appearance of moonlight if you choose a blue lamp. We really can't tell the difference in colors under low illumination anyway, because we have lousy night vision. The human eye has two different types of light sensing cells -- rods and cones. But when illumination levels are very low, it is the rods that are responsible for most of the imaging and not the cones. The cones are the cells that are most responsible for color perception and they are very concentrated in an area of the retina near the middle. The rods are all over the place. If you are interested in a detailed explanation, look it up.

[Ninong]

Hey!

I use a white LED and it looks great. It doesn't seem to bother my fish either. I am curious though. If moon light is just the light reflected from the sun then how is it a different spectrum?

Visual light is just one small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Visual light is light that is perceived by human eyes. How we perceive it depends on a wide range of factors. In the case of moonlight, we perceive it as bluish because of it's extremely low intensity compared to daytime sunlight. We don't perceive sunlight the same on cloudy days as we do on bright, cloudless days. The sky looks bluer on bright, "sunny" days than it does on cloudy days. If you wanted to apply a Kelvin number to the appearance of the sky on a cloudy day, it would be a much higher number than on a cloudless day.

Another example of other factors that affect what we see would be the effects of our atmosphere on sunlight. Obviously the setting sun is still the same size and the same color when it sets as it was fifteen minutes before sunset but we perceive it as redder and larger because we are now viewing it through more atmosphere. When we look at the daytime sky, we perceive it as blue. If we get above our atmosphere we would perceive space as black. The atmosphere scatters blue light.

Electromagnetism isn't changing, our perception of it is changing.

[The R/C Man]

Ninong,


I know silly that was a rhetorical question.....

[sweetrav18]

Will the "white" moon lights appear and give off bluish hugh in the water? Or is that simply the effect fo the blue LED ones. I am only interested in them for my personal asthetic view not for the benefit of induced spawning. I simply like the looks of the bluish water simmilar to the pic posted above and want to make sure that's what I will be getting

[Ninong]

You might find the hue of a blue LED more to your liking. I have never used LEDs, so I can't say from experience what color the hue would appear to me but my blue 25w incandescent lamp only appears blue when looking at the lamp itself, not when looking at the live rock in the tank. The appearance of the tank just seems to be "moonlight," whatever that means to you. It's too dim for me to be able to pick out any particular hue.

[lwkimbley]

I use 5mm led

4000mcd (watts)
470nm (wavelength)
they give the same wave appearence as MH, also I have a dimmer which I dim depending on my local moon schedule. I know my green star polyps and silver xenias have started to expand since using these. Also my pagoda cup and leathers are more defined.

[lwkimbley]

That is also the picture above blue led.

[kevinpo]

The white LED gives off a bluish white light much more like real moonlight. It does not give corals the black light appearance like the actinic colored lamps; so if that's what you're looking for go with the blue LED's. I have both and prefer the white ones but that's just my personal preference it has nothing to do with the corals health.

HTH,
Kevin

[sweetrav18]

do you have a picture of the just moon lights on so I can see the difference? thanks

[lwkimbley]

That picture is just blue led (my moon sim), That is close to quarter moon on my cycle. Also if you notice the brain corals and anemone's glowing from the reflective light
I have a 6 foot tank with 14 leds and a dimmer.

[WHOSYOURDADDY]

Corals and softies absorb blue light easier and the white lights (I've tried it) drive the fish nuts.
Go with a 5mm LED
4000mcd
470nm Wavelength
this is the closest to the moon due to wave lengths.

With what I understand red and blue are the best light spectrum to work with, but who wants to look at a red lit aquarium. When the Moon's light refract through the water what the corals and inverts see is the filtered spectum of blue and red light.