LED light degradation?

[Sleepydoc]

Does anyone know if there is any significant degradation of LED light quality/spectrum over time? For the single color LEDs (UV, blue, red, etc,) the light wavelength is generally determined by the physical properties of the semiconductor materials used to make the LED, so I would expect those to stay constant, although intensity may decrease due to material degradation. White LEDs typically use a UV or Blue LED to excite a phosphor which then emits the white light, not terribly unlike a traditional fluorescent light. I’ve never seen any thing written about it, but I can imagine that the phosphor would degrade with time and alter the spectrum.

Typically the white lights with LEDs are used more for viewing aesthetics than for coral growth, so it may not make a difference, unless there’s an increase in red spectrum that encourages algae growth.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I think you’d find better answers in led technical papers and industry research.

Also keep in mind that “white “ is usually 6 to 10,000 k, and contains elements of the spectrum that the coral does use. Much like coral actually does use red.
It’s green yellow and orange that corals don’t need use. Those are for us.

But yea, low quality will degrade over time.