UV lights on freshwater planted tank

Was playing around with some UV LED lights I just got off of Amazon and found some interesting stuff about my tank. First thing I noticed was that almost all my plants look blood red. Apparently most aquatic plants fluoresce a deep red color. Second, the water looks very murky when I turned on the UV lights but looks very clear under regular day lights. I'm guessing I have floating algae that also fluoresce at a milky greenish color. At first I thought the water was dirty but once I turned all the lights on I realized the water was just fine. May need to start running a UV filter to clear up the water and help my plants get more light penetration and nutrients. I imagine the algae is probably competing with my plants.

Haven't figured out how to get good pictures of fluorescing objects. The pictures all come out blurry without a tripod and the colors just don't look the same with the naked eye. I might have to get an amber filter for my camera lense to filter out visible light and get better pictures. So I can post them on here.

I haven't seen the newest Star Trek movie, but the plants in the previews look exactly like what I see in my tank.


I get the feeling that who ever came up with the idea of a planet of red plants didn't realize that its actually possible. If all visible light was filtered out by the atmosphere and the plants were able to grow with just UV light, then there's a good chance that they could fluoresce a red color. Everything would be very dark like a rave club but still possible in some distant universe or plane of existence.

I'm working on some nice LED lights for both growing plants and to show off the glofish. Picked up some 5050 RGB LED strips and some 3528SMD UV led strip. Just need to find a nice looking aluminum heat sink to mount them onto. Looking for something nicer than a U-channel bar that Lowes or Home Depot carries.

Looks like you are messing around with some cool gears. Would love to see those plants in uv light .

Once I get the light built and all the wires managed, I'll bring it over someday so you can see in person what the plants look like. Pictures just don't show what the eye sees in person.

Originally this was going to be for a reef tank build, but after some research I realized that the RGB LEDs should be perfect for growing plants. With a little extra red LEDs thrown in the mix, I should have the two main color spectrums covered for plant growth. The green LEDs make the plants look great and helps make the light color look whiter. I've seen grow lights with just red and blue LEDs and they look like a weird pinkish purple glow. Very dim and the plants have no distinguishable color under them. But once green LEDs are added you get white light. I also have a three-way-dimmer to adjust the intensity of each color separately. That way I can adjust the Kelvin color temperature to what I want. The glofish do fluoresce under the blue LEDs but I don't want to have them on all night long and cause BBA problems. That's where the UV lights come in. From what I understand, plants and algae don't photosynthesize under UV spectrum light, so in theory I shouldn't have any algae problems. The UV lights also keep the tank very dark but the glofish pop with color. Realy makes them look like they are radioactive or glowing from within.