Any Underwater UV-B Lights out there?

[DjDiverDan]

I was watching a show on TV on the Great Barrier Reef, and there was a segment on coral pigments and how they appeared under UV light. They were using high -powered commercial UV-B lights, the kind professional divers would use to inspect metal parts of an underwater oil rig or other equipment. I'm not ready to invest the kind of dough for that, but I'm dying to know whether or not I can get an underwater UV-B light for the recreational diver. I'd love to see how the different corals look under black light on my next trip to Cozumel. And if it was strong enough to enable me to take some cool photos, that would be a big plus.

 

[drrich2]

There's an old thread with links that might be useful - here.

I'm not familiar with specific products for scuba. What I know of UV-B lighting comes from the reptile hobby; some wavelengths within the UV-B range are used to convert a precursor to the active form of Vit. D3. While dietary supplementation of D3 can be done (such as with commercial foods containing it), some people like to provide UV-B lighting.

I point that out because of some properties of UV-B.

1.) It (at least the wavelengths targeted to aid reptiles) penetrates glass very poorly, unless you use special glass. Same goes from acrylic.

2.) It can cause sunburn, and I think it's for the form of UV that can reflect off snow and cause eye irritation issues.

My point in bringing all this up is, be careful if you get a UV-B lamp powerful enough to penetrate water to useful ranges. You may not want to shine it in anybody's eyes.

Richard.