Laser Pointers And Your Fish

[Qays]

Good points, i did this once, its fun but seems dangerous.

The glass will reflect the light everywhere. It would be ok if you shone it from the top though

 

[Talz]

Good points, i did this once, its fun but seems dangerous.

The glass will reflect the light everywhere. It would be ok if you shone it from the top though

Acually yah... never thought of that

 

[Bignose]

Good points, i did this once, its fun but seems dangerous.

The glass will reflect the light everywhere. It would be ok if you shone it from the top though

Acually yah... never thought of that

If you don't want the light to bounce everywhere, the top is the worst idea, unless you somehow have a perfectly still water surface on the top of your tank. The movement of the water at the top will be contantly changing the angle between the water and the light, so the beam will be refracted in all different directions. For a contant change in angle, the air to glass to water system along the side of the tank is much more predictable than the contantly changing air to water system at the top.

Speaking of which, this thread needs to know the difference between reflection http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_%28physics%29 and refraction http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refraction

There is a neat little java app that illustrates this here: http/www.olympusmicro.com/primer/java/re...ngle/index.html Look what happens when the angle goes above 48.75 degrees... a change from refraction to reflection.

 

[SiriusStarr]

I work at a fish store, and one guy actually came in last week and said his fish died because his brother had a laser pointed at it for about five minutes... so let's just say if you point it *at* a fish, it can be harmful...

I see nothing wrong with getting them to chase it though =)