Don't shoot me for asking this (possibly condescending) question...

[DivingTheWorld]

Fiji, Indonesia, etc, aren't running just royal blues. It's still pretty daylight-y 30 feet down.

At 10-15' you can get away with taking an unfiltered photo, but once you cross that point you'll need an orange filter and/or flash. At 30' the ocean is blue.

 

[92Miata]

At 10-15' you can get away with taking an unfiltered photo, but once you cross that point you'll need an orange filter and/or flash. At 30' the ocean is blue.

At 30 feet all you've lost is red, and a bit of orange. Still lots of green, yellow, etc.

Nothing like a modern reef tank where people are running blue and violet and almost nothing else .

 

[Clyde Nowlan]

Well, what I think you are referring to is the tanks that run heavy blues in their lighting, making them look like they are filled with windex.
I’m not at all a fan of that look but it does bring out certain colors and makes the corals “poop”.

For the most natural look I would recommend you go with metal halide fixtures with 10k bulbs. That will give you that daylight spectrum that you will see on a shallow reef.

I second the metal halide lights for a more natural look.

 

[92Miata]

Good LED fixtures look pretty natural when you don't turn off the red/green/white/orange/etc channels and boost the blue/royal blue/violet channels to 100%


most of the MH bulbs I remember people running were 14K Phoenix type bulbs or 20K Radiums and neither one of those is anywhere near a natural spectrum.

 

[Palegic]

Well you have a few different things at play first being rarity. People like rare things. Rarer corals happen to be more colorful. Color is attractive. People are attracted to what coral looks like in cartoons and movies.

Also, corals are naturally luminescent/fluorescent so with certain spectrums and intensity of "un natural" light you can see increased coloration which you would not normally see in the ocean. AKA corals are going to look more colorful under a radion then they do in the ocean.