Lighting for GFP axolotls

I tried to educate myself on what kind of lighting will and will not make these glow, but I'm still confused. I know a standard black light bulb will work, but I'm also hearing that actinic bulbs cause GFP to fluoresce. It's my understanding that actinic bulbs actually emit visible light, but it looks very blue-is that correct? All of the images and videos I've seen so far showed axolotls glowing in darkness (under a black light). I've not seen any glowing when their surroundings were illuminated, so is it just that no one has used actinic bulbs with them or did I misunderstand this lighting situation?

Hi Kevin,

So...how many did you get? lol...I had not thought of using the actinic bulbs - only used them when I had a coral set up. The ones I used did emit a bluish light, a little lighter than a black light. Those should work just as well as the axolotls should present as the coral would. Wow, now I wish I still had those lights. Those are a bit more pricey than the black light bulbs though and I don't know that the result would be drastically different, unless there's a new form of the actinic I'm unfamiliar with.

Just got the one on the way. The actinic fluorescent bulbs seem to be going for about $20 around here, which seemed high to me. I'm still shopping around a little though so I may find a better deal.

I would skip on actinic bulbs. UV is harmful to amphibians. regular aquarium lighting will suffice, but is only necessary if live plants are used in the enclosure. Axolotls, like most caudates, prefer it dark. Ambient room light is best if you actually want to see your axolotl do more than hide.
I use an undersized bulb in my tanks for axolotls, just enough to keep the low light plants going.

Green fluorescent protein absorbs UV, violet, and blue and shines back green light. Full spectrum light includes all of those, so it makes them glow. I love watching Minty (my GFP) when the sun shines in my window in the mornings.

But like Johnny says, they like low light, and wouldn't like being bombarded with bright light all the time. I have a small, blue directional light on one end of her tank, and every now and then (on her own terms) she'll walk into the beam, sit there a while, and glow. The advantage of a directional light is that she gets to choose.

First to answer Kevin's question about why the axolotl appear to be glowing in the dark with no illumination over the tank....
Answer:
Because black light especially if low intensity or reasonably far away from the object it is causing florescence in isn't going to show up in pictures often...so it looks like its dark when in fact its not. The fact that animal is glowing brightly compared to the black light intensity probably means the way the camera exposes the photo eliminates even more of the black light, causing the environment to seem dark.

Anyways I don't usually post here as I spend most of my time on Dendroboard, but I've been coming up with some special FX ideas for vivariums including specialty lighting and florescent minerals, researching bio-luminescent animals along with GFP animals too. This has included looking into UV exposure relating to amphibians. I have kept several species of newts and salamander off and on over the years, along with mantella frogs and darts of course. Feel free to look me up under "Dendro Dave" on DB to get a sense if I have any idea what I'm talking about here

First: actinic lights are essentially black lights that do no have the "woods glass" coating to block visible light. Its that coating that keeps the light "black"....but its just there to block visible light, not UV.

Second: Black lights do produce UVA, not much uvb. And in large amounts that could potentially be harmful. One thing that is interesting to note though is many dartfrog keepers have kept frogs under actinic reef lighting for years while experiencing no ill effect it seems. However I do not recommend that and prolonged periods of lighting so heavily skewed away from "white" may cause eye strain, or other types of stress. And prolonged periods of high intensity UVA exposure may damage the animal physically, but you really don't need a very powerful black light to get most things to glow nicely and next I'll talk about how to lower risks further...

3rd: Due to your homes walls, and windows you are essentially eliminating most of the UVA that could potentially reach your animal. Add to that the glass from the Tanks themselves and the water and you are limiting it even more. Glass blocks UVB much more then UVA, but it does block anywhere from 5-20% or so of UVA depending on the type of glass, thickness, and how clean it is. Thus by adding in a black light to elicit the glow from your GFP animal you are really only adding back in some of the UVA exposure they would naturally get in the wild. Some UVA may be beneficial. However in an aquatic animal there may be more sensitivity so you probably still want to keep it to a minimum.

Anyways, after all the research I've done into this stuff I've come to the conclusion that a short period of black light lasting no more then an hour or two should present minimal if any risk. You can go down to 15min if you want, and honestly I would error on the side of caution and keep it to an hour or less. So what I suggest is putting your tank lights on a timer, a black light too...and have it kick on the black light after lights out for 15min-1hr or so. That way you can enjoy the glow for part of the night without over exposing the animal. There is no reason to use specialty lighting if you aren't actually going to be looking at the tank because you are asleep or something

I would suggest complimenting this idea by using the lowest intensity black light possible that still creates a decent glow effect. You can also play with how far away the light is from the animal. If you want you can forget the timer just have the light there and turn it on for a minute to show friends or guests or whenever you wanna see it glow and then turn it right back of. You are not going to cook your axie or stress it much at all with a few minutes of exposure every now and then.

Anyways for those interested in some more info on this and the fx ideas I mentioned here are some of the DB threads I've started...

(First one is most relevant to the UVA discussion)
Florescent and exotic minerals and semi precious stone use in viv construction....
Exotic minerals and semi precious stone use in viv construction.... - Dendroboard

(More) new special FX viv ideas...(Firefly lights, and fiber optic FX for plants))
(More) new special FX viv ideas...(Firefly lights, and fiber optic FX for plants)) - Dendroboard

Firefly lights installed in Hex (With Video)
Firefly lights installed in Hex (With Video) - Dendroboard

Possible ways to create glowing FX for LIVE moss...
Possible ways to create glowing FX for LIVE moss... - Dendroboard

Bioluminescent animals for the vivarium...
Bioluminescent animals for the vivarium... - Dendroboard

Glowing Desert Viv Finished...
Glowing Desert Viv Finished... - Dendroboard

MORE FX...Model train scenery use(fake rock?) and simulated rippling water fx light
MORE FX...Model train scenery use(fake rock?) and simulated rippling water fx light - Dendroboard

And you can check out my vivariums and a few of my animals in these 2 Flickr galleries...
My galleries...
http://tiny.cc/yptef
And...
http://tiny.cc/mnowi

I had a friend who used actinic lights for glofish and it worked much better than his blacklight. The actinic lights were also much more expensive than the blacklight, so it may have been that he just had a poor quality blacklight

Well an actinic light doesn't have "woods glass" to block the visible light, so you get the uv plus the other frequencies so as far as actually lighting the tank it should be brighter. As far as making something glow I'm not sure if its really any better or not....might be since light near UV may kinda activate the glow effect too, plus you'd be getting reflected visible light off the object. The only trade off would be since a black light keeps the environment fairly dark there may be more contrast between the darker environment and the glowing object then with an actinic that illuminates everything to a fair degree but also makes it glow...could be the added reflected light and and near UV frequencies make the glow appear brighter even in a better lit environment...haven't tried it so can't say for sure.

I am no expert, but I have noticed that my axies don't get freaked out with blue LED light, as compared to black LED lights. The blue lights will still make them glow, though not as vividly as black light. I believe it's a fair trade off for a happy axie.:happy:

I am expecting my 2 baby axolotl next week, one is a GFP. This is also what the breeder recommended to me. Luckily LED lights are all I use for my aquarium plants with the fish I currently have. They all have the "nightime" mode with only blue lights - so I am tickled!!