Fluorescent Minerals

[TeknoNolan]

Hello.

I was looking through a few books at Amazon.com today and noticed a book with a number of pictures of fluorescent minerals, rocks that glow when activated by UV light. My initial thought was that these would make an excellent addition to a salt water reef aquarium, but then I began to wonder.

Is there any reason not to add a fluorescent mineral and/or UV light to a tank? (I am a total newbie when it comes to reef aquaria.)

Thanks,
Nolan

PS: I love the podcast. Keep up the good work Rob. I mention it to anyone who'll listen

[Rob]

awesome thanks..

as for the rock, it would depend on the mineral, some may be acceptable, others are not.. you need to be cautious of leeching..

im not sure off the top of my head what minerals would fluoresce, so there not much more i can say on that topic

[CarmieJo]

Hi Nolan,

to TR.

[cristos]

I think that the fluorescent minerals are a fluorescent algae and the copepods and rotifers glow when consume that king of algae. I think that the name is dinoflagelate ….. I don’t remember the other word.

Algagen knows that kind of “algae”?

[saxman]

certain minerals fluoresce under UV lighting, but as mentioned, i'm not sure what the minerals in question are, so i'd say not to add them to a SW tank.

why not simply get a few softies that fluoresce under 03 actinics? our reef takes on a whole different look once the 10k's go out, and many of the softies are easy to care for.

[stripepike]

My degree is in geology and I would hesitate to flourscent minerals to my tank. many of them contain zinc , byrellium, copper, and othre nasty metals that will harm critters we are trying to keep in the tank. the other thing that these flourescent minerals are going to add to the tank is Silica. while this won't directly harm what it is in the tank but will provide the silica necessary for diatoms to bloom. Diatoms need silica to make thier shells.
The other problem with flourscent minerals in your tank is many of them need Short wave UV light and what you are adding to the tank with something like an actinic bulb is long wave UV light. so you arn't going to get much of an effect.
lastly with the amount of light you are going to be putting on your tank you won't see the flourscent effect unless all you are running is the uv bulb.

some examples of flourscent minerals are:
flourite (Calcium Flouride will add flouride to your tank)
willemite (Zinc Silicate will add both zinc and silica to your tank)
Argellite (NaCa2Si4O10F will add silica and flouride to your tank)
Halite (NaCl well that will just disolve and increase your salinity)
Barite (Bariums Sulfate just nasty stuff to add to your tank)

this page has some good examples of diffrent flourscent minerals and what they look like:
Steve's Fluorescent Mineral Gallery
this page has the information about looking up what is in diffrent minerals:
Mineralogy Database

Sally

[Amphibious]

TeknoNolan, welcome to TR.

stripepike, also, welcome to TR.

Hey Sally, great answer to Nolans question and great source of info.

Thanks!

Dick

[PreauxPhoto]

Great reply Sally that's what this place is about!

[TeknoNolan]

Thanks for the advice!
-Nolan