Does anyone realize a PAR meter measures terrestrial plant spectrum and doesn't realize the benefits of the amount of UV available to corals. Bacteriochlorophylls are outside of the par spectrum. Is high energy UV required for corals to grow.
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Pretty sure Dana has that..and I'm sure I saw it but.....Has anyone seen any recent oceanic spectrum data taken over a reef. I'd like to get it incorporated in my calculator for LED design.
Custom Popbloom?My current build of the LED lights is configured using the calculated attenuance and ratios for 3M depth in clear seawater. The LED wavelengths are shown. The initial version didn't have a solid fill for LED spectrum but worked well. LED's have a very tight peak so spacing the various wavelengths as close together as possible to get the overlap interference is needed especially for UV LED's.
Yes. for some reason these lights are popping up in multiple threads today. I had a knee replacement so I don't move much so I'm messing with new spectrum combinations. Here is the light I'm putting together now.
- LED UV (410nm) [120°] x20
- LED Violet (430nm) [120°] x15
- LED RoyalBlue (440nm) [120°] x20
- LED Blue (460nm) [120°] x25
- LED Blue (470nm) [120°] x20
- LED Cyan (490nm) [120°] x72
- LED Cyan (510nm) [120°] x50
- LED Green (520nm) [120°] x30
- LED Green (540nm) [120°] x40
- LED Amber (580nm) [120°] x30
- LED Red (610nm) [120°] x3
- LED Red (630nm) [120°] x3
- LED CoolWhite (8000K) [120°] x30
Sorry.. 1/2 of my above response got lost..I do have a spectrometer here somewhere. Yes the LED classification (Bins) can be pretty loose. Unfortunately the UV LED's don't use a fluorescent coating to spread out the peaks. I have LED's Binned every 10nm between 365 and 470nm. That's about the best coverage I can find right now.
I am going to assume you meant 350nm not 450nm. Metal halides did have a fairly solid UVA spectrum down to 350nmThere is zero evidence that light below 450nm has any benefit to corals. It's just bantering points pushed by people who are having trouble growing coral and picking a straw horse to blame.
UV LEDs only started showing up in fixtures when the semi conductor industry figured out how to make them reliable and cheap.. The primary market for these things is DJ lights ...not reef lights. I have a bunch of 50watt 395nm chips. They have no business on my reef tank.
The Spectrum of the sun is pretty well known and doesn't have to tested. The spectral absorption of chlorophyll is also well known. The spectral band for Clorophyll photon absorption is also pretty wide. Zooanthalae algae in corals can pretty much thrive when being hit with photons from 420nm to Windex. Higher energy , higher frequency photons with shorter wavelengths dont translate into a higher conversion efficiency for chlorophyll. As long as its blue light of any flavor it works for Zooanthalae.
Reef Halides lack violet and UVA - no problem growing coral.
Reproducing the spectrum of the sun, providing you could actually do so which is unlikely in 3m of water won't grow corals better. Zooanthalae will just absorb the same blue photons as they normally do and ignore the rest.
Put a plasma sulfur above your tank if you want to truly mimmick solar spectrum. It won't grow corals better than a black box at the same PAR.

