UV on AI Prime harmful??

[Falcon789]

Im wortred about my 5yr old. She likes looking at the tank. She looks up at the light. Can this be bad for her eyes?

[A.m.P]

Bright blue lights cause eye strain, Coral lights which are not metal halides do not actually produce UV radiation, the AI website fully-discloses the frequency and make of their LEDs. UV radiation in the public-sphere or common-knowledge refers only to UVB or C radiation, UVA is next to harmless and isn't really produced by the 380 nm LED in the puck to begin with, their UV is just a glorified -frequency-boosted purple that we have a hard time seeing as humans.

[Matteo]

1 hour ago, Amphrites said:

Bright blue lights cause eye strain, Coral lights which are not metal halides do not actually produce UV radiation, the AI website fully-discloses the frequency and make of their LEDs. UV radiation in the public-sphere or common-knowledge refers only to UVB or C radiation, UVA is next to harmless and isn't really produced by the 380 nm LED in the puck to begin with, their UV is just a glorified -frequency-boosted purple that we have a hard time seeing as humans.

Nice

[Clown79]

Looking directly into leds is not advised, it's a lot on the eyes. Regardless which diode colour.

[mcarroll]

12 hours ago, Falcon789 said:

Im wortred about my 5yr old. She likes looking at the tank. She looks up at the light. Can this be bad for her eyes?

 

2 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Looking directly into leds is not advised, it's a lot on the eyes. Regardless which diode colour.

Agreed.   The simple answer is "Yes it's bad."

 

Here's the longer answer:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0194218

 

One quote: 

"Light causes damage to the retina (phototoxicity) and decreases photoreceptor responses to light. The most harmful component of visible light is the blue wavelength (400–500 nm)."

 

450nm(-ish) makes up most of the watts of every reef light.

 

Read the article for the details.  :-)

[A.m.P]

On the >_> bright side <_< blue light doesn't have as large an impact on sleep or human development as "popular-science" once thought, but like both said above over time staring directly at bright light is a bad idea, get her some cute polarized sunglasses or even just some walmart bargain pieces and limit exposure times by either getting her a stool or chair to sit in (eliminating the angle causing her to stare into the lights) or just limiting "tank time".

[Falcon789]

Thanks for the insight. She has stopped for now but I know once I get fish I might need to get her sunglasses. 

[mcarroll]

BTW, the link I posted earlier talks about (among other things) using "blue blocking" sunglasses and how they don't block any more than 30(ish) percent of the blue light.....and unfortunately also block other more useful wavelengths.  Better than nothing maybe, but the tank would certainly lose some of its beauty with non-blue wavelengths being cut out too.

 

A more effective solution might be a shade on the tank or on the light (or both) to block her line of sight to the emitters.  Or if you've seen a so-called floating canopy, that's another option.

 

I also like @Amphrites idea of raising her vantage point to the tank.

 

A combination approach might be the best.

 

8 hours ago, Amphrites said:

On the >_> bright side <_< blue light doesn't have as large an impact on sleep or human development as "popular-science" once thought

What makes you say that, Mr. Punmaster?   

 

I'm not sure what popular science said, but (for one thing) blue light has a direct and immediate effect on production of one sleep hormone called melatonin. 

 

Blue light (from early sunrise) is apparently the natural trigger for your body to stop producing it for the day.

 

Melatonin/lack of blue light is not the only factor that generates sleep or sleepiness though, so maybe you heard something about this complexity that seemed to diminish the role of blue light?  

 

It's a pretty interesting set of hormones and circumstances that all combine to generate sleep.  (And for what it's worth, sleep itself is WAY more interesting than I would ever have guessed.)

 

Matthew Walker is a phd who has an excellent book (and a TED talk for those with less time/attention like me) called "Why We Sleep" that summarizes modern research on the topic.  It's an easy read.

 

Nothing revolutionary in the conclusions....his stated purpose is to get people to stop shorting their sleep and get the 7-9 hours required.

 

Here is one category of interesting things that have come from modern sleep research:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2019&q=shift+work+can+be+hazardous+to+your+health

 

The top hit (at least on my Google) is the following editorial...good because it summarizes...refer to the search link above for many other sources:

 

International consensus statements on non-standard working time arrangements and occupational health and safety

 

(You will prolly want to uncheck "since 2019" that I included in the search link and check the results from "all years" too.)

 

Bottom line is simple:  Don't mess with your sleep!  And if you aren't getting proper sleep -- do something about it.

 

(@Falcon789 hopefully this wasn't too much of a tangent!)

 

[A.m.P]

Long and short kind-of, the importance was oversold and newer experiments are painting a much kinder picture of blue light and our eyes/bodies. There's an important distinction to be made these days between published papers/findings and actual science/consensus. The problem with many of these "breakthroughs" is that they're more just commercialized media jumping on something they saw in a science journal, many larger journals are now even reluctant to publish studies which later overturn information they previously printed. One of the more recent and famous examples being the picture-correlation study on political affiliation and fear/other emotions, which was found to be unreproducable and yet is still quoted.

The tldr is melatonin deficiency in modern adults is caused by a wide-array of new habits and stimuli we now encounter in modern life, from our routines, to our lack of exercise, to our; newfound sedentary lifestyle, diets, etc. Yes blue light contributes, but not as much as pop-sci from 2015 or so would have you  think, granted back then journals were trying to link blue light to "early sexual development" and all kinds of utter insanity, essentially without any actual trials, evidence, studies, etc.

The gist of what I was trying to communicate. Gotta be careful of pop-sci in this attention economy.


OH and polarized lenses are different from popular gaming/computer eyewear with yellow-tints haha, efficacy still better than nothing to boot =p

https://www.popsci.com/blue-light-blocking-glasses-science/
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/28/blue-light-led-screens-cancer-insomnia-health-issues
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/112/4/1232.full.pdf

Quote

“Blue light is not sinister,” says Stuart Peirson, of the sleep and circadian neuroscience institution (SCNi) at Oxford University. “You get changes particularly in the blue part of the spectrum around dawn and dusk and so our bodies have evolved to be able to detect these changes, because they are what’s important for setting our clocks. It’s just that we’ve subsequently invented devices that emit light and we’ve filled our environment with them and made them addictive. If you go to bed at night and stare at your bedside lamp for 10 minutes, that will shift your clock, it’s just that nobody does that.”
 

"Less than a 10 minute difference in REM sleep and time-to-sleep. Findings like this are fairly typical of the research on the effects of blue light exposure before bed:

Yes, blue light does negatively impact melatonin levels and to some extent impacts sleep, but the magnitude is quite small and unlikely to be a significant factor in your overall sleep."

 

Edited June 29, 2019 by Amphrites

[mcarroll]

This is going very off topic from 5 year olds and reef tanks.

 

And that quote is a straw-man/Red Herring.  (both) 

 

What kind of nonsensical writing uses some of the facts and then draws a silly conclusion like that?  (Red Herring)

 

Who would stare at a lamp wen you have an iPad, iPhone and LCD TV to stare at before bed????

 

How many look at their device of choice for less than 10 minutes??

 

I know some folks (lots) actually do this (TV or device) in bed right before sleep.

 

Lamps are not the issue.  Duh.   

 

Will take this to PM now..... @Amphrites, meet me there!  :-)