Vivid Coral Film is a new concept in making coral colors really pop, without actually doing anything to your corals or the aquarium water. Much like the fluorescence barrier filters used in NightSea goggles, the Vivid Coral Film filters out non-essential light waves and colors, making corals appear brilliant and even more fluorescent.
The new coral viewing film is a made by Vivid Coral Technologies, and it is a simple yellow-amber plastic laminate that is smoothed on the viewing glass of the aquarium. The concept of using yellow-amber plastic for viewing coral colors in a more flattering light is not unique to the Vivid Coral Film, as we have reported on the availability of colored safety glasses in these shades to achieve the same effect.
The Vivid Coral Film works particularly well with blue-heavy lighting schemes, especially from LEDs and T5s. In addition to making coral colors pop, the film is a barrier filter to High Energy Visible (HEV) light, the likes of which has been loosely associated with eye damage with continued exposure. The Vivid Coral Film is an interesting concept in coral reef presentation, but isn’t stopping Vivid Coral Technologies from offering kits to cover the entire aquarium and making corals look permanently turned on.
The kits to cover complete tanks range from $129 to $319. Considering none of us have seen how this idea plays out in real life, we imagine many folks will be taking a shot at the $5 sample of the Vivid Coral Film which is 2 x 4 inches in area; we don’t expect everyone to really jump on the bandwagon of “vivid filming” our entire reef tanks, but we could see this being a novel touch for the frag tanks and coral quarantine tanks to display the coral’s potential before the corals go into the main reef tank. [Vivid Coral Tech]
