UV Violet LEDs

childress5tyler · Oct 25, 2012

Currently I've got 8 3 watt Cree whites and 14 3 watt Cree royal blues. I'm seriously considering adding 5 more royal blue LEDs and 8 UV violet LEDs. Is anybody out there running these UV violet LEDs willing to chime in and give their opinion. Thanks!

revsgirl · Oct 26, 2012

:bump2:

saratj1 · Oct 31, 2012

I use uv LEDs. There are a couple things to consider though. One is that they put out next to no light, so probably 10w of uv will equal 1w of royal blue. Also the coloration of coral is their response to harmful uv radiation, similar to us tanning. Just right the right amount will produce a nice tan too much will burn your hide off. I only have a couple 3w uv LEDs and honestly can't tell they are on. Get a couple just to cover your bases, it may be found out later that these are essential to a good led reef light, and then your good, it's also maybe found out that they are not good , and in that case you'll only have a small amount of output in the uv spectrum. So hedge your bets and put a couple on there and call it good. That's my opinion anyways

jedimasterben · Oct 31, 2012

Violet is a very good thing to add to your lighting, as this is where two out of three significant photosynthetic peaks are for both chlorophyll a and c (with a being present 10:1 in corals versus c, and 3:2 in tridacnid clams). I'll have a thread up here shortly of a summary of what wavelengths and such.

What I can tell you is this: never, ever use anything labeled 'UV' over your tank. UV is anything below 400nm. Use only true violet LEDs, which are above 400nm. I prefer the SemiLED 410-420 from Steve's LEDs, they peak at 417nm, and LEDGroupBuy is releasing a 430nm LED within 7 days. I would run half and half of each. What size tank do you have?

It is VERY easy to overdo it with violet. Our eyes, frankly, do not work well at wavelengths so darn close to UV, that we just can't see all of the light they put out. This does not mean that they are not outputting a lot of light and PAR - these things are absolute PAR monsters because they sit on the most active wavelength in photosynthesis, and therefore should be used sparingly.