The MU-200 is a UV radiation meter from Apogee which follows in the design of the recently refreshed Apogee QM-200 PAR meter. Like the much sleeker body and modern-quality LCD display of the PAR meter, Apogee’s MU-200 includes a separate sensor and can manually log up to 99 different samples.
The Apogee MU-200 has a ultraviolet sensitivity range of 0 – 199.9 µmol/m2/s which is more than the 170 umol/m2/s you get from full sunlight at noon. We got our hands on one of these UV units and we just couldn’t help to be excited about the pink faceplate to match the spectrum this meter is supposed to measure.
It was absolutely fascinating to go around the home LED proving grounds with the UV meter to measure 0 UV coming from almost all the LEDs except for two; The LeDio 9 watt spotlights have a single UV LED and Sunbrite LED makes a strip housing all UV LEDs. Ecoxotic’s 403nm barely registered 0.1 umol of UV at 1″ away, the LeDio gave us peaks of 0.5umol UV at 12″ and the Sunbrite strip was the clear winner of the UV contest with a steady 2.5 umol at 12″.
Like the UV LEDs, the MU-200 UV meter from Apogee won’t come cheap at $369 for this model with the separate sensor. This may be a niche toy for the SPS centric coral growers but the cost pales int he light of using it to untangle some of the connections between lighting and coral coloration. Couple more shots after the break.
