Every time this comes up I am amazed at the stupid things people post that they found on the internet.
First, you have to be James Cameron and have a submarine like his to get deep enough to where only blue light penetrates at over 150 meters. Most of the corals in our tanks are collected in waist deep water or on one breath - less than 3 meters where the light is about 6500k. Some of the most sought after corals are in lagoons a few inches deep at low tide, or just flat out of the water.
Second, there are pigments, proteins, sunscreen proteins that all develop with waves from 350-850nm, or so. Then the corals have to have energy to live. The wider the spectrum, the more color that you are going to render in the actual coral.
Third, your LFS is trying to sell you coral. They are usually trying to make their blah corals look better. If they looked good, they would look good under 10k or 14k lighting - check out my rebuild thread and tell me if the corals look bad under non-blue lighting? ...but I choose good corals to begin with and then also can keep them nice looking. Lots of vendors hate it when you ask them to turn the dial on their frag show Kessils more white because they know that you know what good stuff looks like and that they have crappy stuff - the ones with good stuff don't do 100% windex from the get-go.
Lastly, NEVER, EVER, EVER believe a vendor or manufacturer without serious vetting. Some outright lie and all of them misrepresent. EcoTech came up with a BS entity called Coral Lab to say stupid things to sell their LEDs. BRS only focuses on products that they sell even when there are better options on the market. Trust the vendors that only tell you about their products and don't try and editorialize or write a science book.
In short, daylight is the best for actual color rendering and then blue-it-up for an hour or two to look at your corals if you like that look.
Go and find Tullio Del Aquilas Facts of Light presentation from MACNA a few years back. It is an hour. It is kinda dry at times. Stick with it. Pay attention. Seek to learn and not just confirm any existing biases. This will set a VERY good foundation for lighting that you can learn from in years to come. It is probably the best hour that you can spend for your corals this year.
First, you have to be James Cameron and have a submarine like his to get deep enough to where only blue light penetrates at over 150 meters. Most of the corals in our tanks are collected in waist deep water or on one breath - less than 3 meters where the light is about 6500k. Some of the most sought after corals are in lagoons a few inches deep at low tide, or just flat out of the water.
Second, there are pigments, proteins, sunscreen proteins that all develop with waves from 350-850nm, or so. Then the corals have to have energy to live. The wider the spectrum, the more color that you are going to render in the actual coral.
Third, your LFS is trying to sell you coral. They are usually trying to make their blah corals look better. If they looked good, they would look good under 10k or 14k lighting - check out my rebuild thread and tell me if the corals look bad under non-blue lighting? ...but I choose good corals to begin with and then also can keep them nice looking. Lots of vendors hate it when you ask them to turn the dial on their frag show Kessils more white because they know that you know what good stuff looks like and that they have crappy stuff - the ones with good stuff don't do 100% windex from the get-go.
Lastly, NEVER, EVER, EVER believe a vendor or manufacturer without serious vetting. Some outright lie and all of them misrepresent. EcoTech came up with a BS entity called Coral Lab to say stupid things to sell their LEDs. BRS only focuses on products that they sell even when there are better options on the market. Trust the vendors that only tell you about their products and don't try and editorialize or write a science book.
In short, daylight is the best for actual color rendering and then blue-it-up for an hour or two to look at your corals if you like that look.
Go and find Tullio Del Aquilas Facts of Light presentation from MACNA a few years back. It is an hour. It is kinda dry at times. Stick with it. Pay attention. Seek to learn and not just confirm any existing biases. This will set a VERY good foundation for lighting that you can learn from in years to come. It is probably the best hour that you can spend for your corals this year.
