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Originally posted by MCsaxmaster
UV-A (aka long-wave UV) ranges from 400 - 320 nm, UV-B from 320 - 280 nm and UV-C from 280 - 200 nm. Technically all of this is 'near UV' with 'far UV' ranging from 200 - 1 nm. As such, what I should have said and what I meant is that blacklights produce UV mostly near the visible spectrum, that is, mostly UV-A which is not particularly dangerous. They produce very little UV-B (damaging) and essentially no UV-C (DEADLY). UV-A is long wavelength UV light, not short...
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Quote:
Originally posted by hahnmeister
Ill try to find the thread, but its about 3-6 months old and involves dicsussion on the effects/benefits of UV-A in bulbs... the Giesemann Pure Actinic bulbs and halides in particular.
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I came upon this thread while researching building an LED array to supplement the halides, similar to using actinic VHOs. Most of the LEDs that seemed to be what I was looking for were labelled as "UV" and carried the warnings about not looking directly at them. I know that most actinics are between 420nm and 450nm (maybe as high as 470nm for some).
So here is my question, based on some of the information posted here : So long as the wavelenth of the LED is above 400 it should be safe to put over our tank ?
Aren't actinics somewhat UV ? URI stands for Ultraviolet Research Institute IIRC, and they are considered the leader for VHO actinics.
I am just trying to make sure that I understand what is what so that when I finally do source out the LEDs I get the right ones (or at least don't get the wrong ones).
Do I need to pay more attention to the wavelength than whether they label it UV or not ?
I know this is a little off topic for what the thread was originally started for, but it dovetails right into the majority of the information in the other posts. Thanks
