Lighting... do you think we OVERDO it?

[Dana Riddle]

Someone should take a PAR meter to the coral reefs while diving lol.

On a serious note, there's a video interviewing Jason Fox where he talks about how important blues are and he doesn't use any white, red, or green.

Here you go. Data from 20 years ago when I was in Hawaii.

 

[Dana Riddle]

Here you go. Data from 20 years ago when I was in Hawaii.

And on a sunny day.

 

[Hitman]

And on a sunny day.

That’s much higher then I would have guessed!

 

[ScottR]

And on a sunny day.

Wow. That’s super low PAR on a cloudy day.

 

[ZoWhat]

And on a sunny day.

@Dana Riddle

1) Any info/data on what the color temp was throughout the day. I assume the color temp (kelvin) changed as the PAR rose, peaked, then fell off.

2) I assume if you say smthg like (12,000k color temp) .... to achieve that you need to peak your NM at around 440nm to 460nm with a hint of green, maybe red (?)

Guess if one were to hit a peak of 440nm-460nm it would be interesting to know what WATTAGE one would have to power to penetrate the bottom of a 24-28in tank to achieve a high 400+ PAR

I know lighting is ultimately balancing:
* PAR with
* NM peak with
* a Kelvin color temp mix of NMs

.

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[Dana Riddle]

That’s much higher then I would have guessed!

The waters off the Kailua-Kona, Hawaii are some of the 'clearest' in the world. Many reefs, especially those off heavily populated areas or subject to influence of rivers, runoff, etc. won't receive this amount of light.

 

[Dana Riddle]

@Dana Riddle

1) Any info/data on what the color temp was throughout the day. I assume the color temp (kelvin) changed as the PAR rose, peaked, then fell off.

2) I assume if you say smthg like (12,000k color temp) .... to achieve that you need to peak your NM at around 440nm to 460nm with a hint of red?

Guess if one were to hit a peak of 440nm-460nm it would be interesting to know what WATTAGE one would have to power to penetrate the bottom of a 24-28in tank

I know lighting is ultimately balancing:
* PAR with
*NM peak with
* a Kelvin color temp

.

.

I never overcame the obstacles of waterproofing the Ocean Optics spectrometer, so no spectral data. I suspect the spectral characteristics didn't change that much since most warmer wavelengths are absorbed by the water at this depth. I think if we illuminate with bluish light and keep the PAR levels at ~150 to 200 at the bottom of the tank we'll be OK and can ignore the wattage issue.

 

[ZoWhat]

I never overcame the obstacles of waterproofing the Ocean Optics spectrometer, so no spectral data. I suspect the spectral characteristics didn't change that much since most warmer wavelengths are absorbed by the water at this depth. I think if we illuminate with bluish light and keep the PAR levels at ~150 to 200 at the bottom of the tank we'll be OK and can ignore the wattage issue.

Time for me to call around to LFSs to see if I can rent or borrow a PAR meter.

@Dana Riddle I hate to ask you this and you don't have to answer this.... but if I were to buy a PAR meter off Amazon or from BRS....do you recommend a particular Brand/Model?

 

[Dana Riddle]

Time for me to call around to LFSs to see if I can rent or borrow a PAR meter.

@Dana Riddle I hate to ask you this and you don't have to answer this.... but if I were to buy a PAR meter off Amazon or from BRS....do you recommend a particular Brand/Model?

My lab has PAR meters from Li-Cor (the gold standard), Apogee (a great value) and Spectrum Technologies. Of these, I like the Apogee MQ-510. It is corrected for the immersion effect, has a sensor that accurately reads light quality, especially LEDs, and has data logging capability.

 

[jasonrusso]

But under a tropical sun, wouldnt you say there is more yellow and red in the sunlight..... than pure white light?

It's my understanding white is the mixture of ALL colors coming at you....from purples to blues to greens to yellows to reds all coming at you

In the age of 6k, 10k led diodes, those are pretty "white". I believe 5000-kelvin is considered "pure white light"

POINT BEING.... almost all LED lighting systems throw a purer white light in 6k to 14kelvins diodes rather than splitting out yellows and reds in the "White Channel"

I contend that if you took those Acros pictured above and put them under the "white channel" heavy on 6k led lighting, they'd bleach out. I would think theyre use to heavy yellows and reds in their lighting requirements....not pure white light offered in many 6k led diodes in practicallya ALL LED systems......I dont get the use of white light


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Remember, if you see a color, that means the coral isn't using it. If it getting full spectrum light and it looks yellow, then it doesn't need yellow.

It has been proven that plants will die if only green light is used because they reflect all the green spectrum.

 

[jasonrusso]

I was having a hard time burning corals until I turned the white light way down. Now I run maybe 7% white and 75% blue. I get good growth and glowing greens.

 

[Hermie]

Remember, if you see a color, that means the coral isn't using it. If it getting full spectrum light and it looks yellow, then it doesn't need yellow.

It has been proven that plants will die if only green light is used because they reflect all the green spectrum.

it's an interesting generality, however a plant could use some green (only as an example) and still reflect much of it, so I only propose that it's not correct to say the "entire" green or yellow spectrums are not being used, just maybe "most" or "nearly all" of it

 

[jsvand5]

I like some blue light, just not the blue that LEDs give off. I keep my tank much more white than most do in the age of LEDs. Certainly more white than you see in vendors tanks. High blue LED tanks look ridiculous to me. I used to actually like 20k halides but the blue from LEDs looks cartoonish and definitely not like any natural reef.

 

[Dana Riddle]

Spectrum plays a part. When a coral senses a lot of red light, it 'thinks' it is in shallow water and will regulate the number of zooxanthellae it contains. If it senses high blue light intensity, it 'thinks' it is in shallow water and will color up (that is, make colorful proteins that reflect red and blue light.) If there is a lot of blue light at low intensity, many corals - not all - collect blue light and fluoresce it in wavelengths (reddish) that are useful in photosynthesis. The real issue is that, as aquarists, we understand what a coral's coloration is telling us.

 

[blasterman]

The artificial lights we blast our tanks with, be it MH, LED or fluorescent are almost entirely weighted in 450nm light. Sunlight, even at 100feet down in the ocean is heavily blue weighted because longer wavelengths are filtered. I used to handle film footage for divers and color correction required lots of red/cyan adjustment, but nowhere near the freaky royal blue light our artificial lights produce. If you look at the wild pictures of corals in this thread they look nothing like they do in our tanks.

Those pictures of corals in the ocean are bathed in green/yellow/red light that we typically don't want in our tanks because it doesn't make our corals look cool. Please don't get me started on how your new LED light is 'full spectrum' because it has a couple disco colored diodes. It's not. Plasma sulfur lights came and went because nobody liked how they looked on a reef tank - and plasma sulfur is a pretty good approximation of sunlight.

Last time I rolled the math it took 1200watts of MH per square meter to match the energy output of the equatorial sun. Since corals only care about blue weighted light were just lucky lighting technology efficiently generates lots of 450nm light. If corals had evolved to prefer yellow or orange wavelengths we'd be screwed...unless you like the look of high pressure sodium lights on a reef tank.

Here's something to think about most reefers haven't: the sun moves across the sky, and corals get light from the sun as it moves across the sky giving them very broad angles of illumination. Lights in our tank are fixed, and this more than anything creates issues. The guy with a single Kessil on a 55 standard is an extreme example. Distribution of our lights is as important as intensity. As much as I can't stand the static look of T5's this is why they work so well for SPS. Lots of distributed light.

 

[blasterman]

Found this Kelvin color temperature scale that made a lot of sense to me.

The pure white light I keep talking about is right around 6500k according to this color scale.

Soooooo. Aquarium lighting seems to spec out their color specific diodes (like blue, green, red) as a specific NM.

Once they start spec'ing out "white" type of light on their White Channel, they SWITCH over to the Kelvin rating....bc the white light is a mixture of differing nm wavelengths.

In looking at the Kelvin scale above, popular White Channel diodes fall in the 3,500k (yellowish white) category, then 6,500ks (very bright pure white), then 10,000k/12,000ks (white with a hint of blue), 14,000ks (white with more blue), 20,000k (white with a metallic blue color).

Someone said earlier that they feel as a Diver, the color temp seems to be in the 12,000k color temperature range. That's an interesting observation

The 'spec it' because chinese can only rip off American technology so much before not translating well.

A 10k 'white' LED is just a regular daylight LED the factory in china screwed up and didn't put enough phosphor on. When Cree or Philips makes a 8000k LED it's 'oops...lets Ebay it'.

Kelvin temp has nothing to do with the light sources we put on tanks - never has and never will. Correlated color temp requires a perceptual color translation, and that doesn't exist on artificial reef tank lights. A 12k or 20k Metal Halide will look nothing like a 12k or 20k LED.

 

[Reeferdood]

Spectrum plays a part. When a coral senses a lot of red light, it 'thinks' it is in shallow water and will regulate the number of zooxanthellae it contains. If it senses high blue light intensity, it 'thinks' it is in shallow water and will color up (that is, make colorful proteins that reflect red and blue light.) If there is a lot of blue light at low intensity, many corals - not all - collect blue light and fluoresce it in wavelengths (reddish) that are useful in photosynthesis. The real issue is that, as aquarists, we understand what a coral's coloration is telling us.

BINGO.... Perfect choice of words Sir.

 

[JasPR]

'Should we worry about overdoing it when it comes to lighting"?? Brother, THAT ship has sailed a while ago! ( Circa 2010). Vanity and obsession in a quest for perfection plays very large in this hobby! Truth is every lighting system has pluses and minuses. We were fine with metal halide and actinic blue. Just as we were fine with banks of T-5s. But restlessness, the obsession for perfection and good old fashioned marketing drive the bus! Ditching the concept of 'perfection is the enemy of good',the LED craze promised heaven but also brought along a lot of negatives- expense, expensive to repair and replace-- and in some cases, TOO controllable and as a result the potential to do more damage and harm due to unlimited customization ( some of those settings can build an impressive 'death ray' for sedimentary species). In the end, we find our way, or in some cases, 'our way back' to a lighting system that pleases us, our vanity and our captives. But not until the industry has extracted a few grand along the way. Color me cynical.

 

[mmoner]

Spectrum plays a part. When a coral senses a lot of red light, it 'thinks' it is in shallow water and will regulate the number of zooxanthellae it contains. If it senses high blue light intensity, it 'thinks' it is in shallow water and will color up (that is, make colorful proteins that reflect red and blue light.) If there is a lot of blue light at low intensity, many corals - not all - collect blue light and fluoresce it in wavelengths (reddish) that are useful in photosynthesis. The real issue is that, as aquarists, we understand what a coral's coloration is telling us.

IMO any coral reaction takes at least two weeks to whatever modified in a tank (light, flow etc.). Your ideas?

 

[Dana Riddle]

IMO any coral reaction takes at least two weeks to whatever modified in a tank (light, flow etc.). Your ideas?

The coral coloration guru Mikhail Matz found the turnover rate of colorful proteins was about 30 days but of course there are exceptions. So yes I think you are on the right track.