Which light colour is best for corals!

[Mykawl]

Nobody on this thread probably has anything in their tanks that was collected at a depth of more than 5 meters... maybe just a few things. The vast majority are collected on one breath with a mask only. Lots of stuff is collected waist-deep water at low tide.

Deeper dives, specialized equipment and rebreathers are used for fish which are worth a whole lot more and even then, dives of 50 meters are not common and those fish can sometimes cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Insightful thankyou : )

 

[romperstomper]

The new red sea reefLED lights utilize lights more on the blue end of the spectrum... my question is can we just run a blue light only or do we need a little bit of white too? What are your thoughts?

been running my tank on just blues for around 4 years very little if any white is used ,lps ,zoas seem fine , my understanding is blue is for the corals and white for visuals of the fish and algae growth .

 

[merereef]

been running my tank on just blues for around 4 years very little if any white is used ,lps ,zoas seem fine , my understanding is blue is for the corals and white for visuals of the fish and algae growth .

Really? Can you share your lighting schedule if you dont mind what perfecentage, how long for etc.. what was your thought process behind just running all blues? Thanks

 

[romperstomper]

Really? Can you share your lighting schedule if you dont mind what perfecentage, how long for etc.. what was your thought process behind just running all blues? Thanks

kessils 160s full blues for 12 hours plus 2 hours ramp up and down ,turned the white lights off orginally due to algae issues but that was around 3.5 years ago now . Only down side is you can not see the full colours of the fish but my zoas look great .

 

[mta_morrow]

It gets way complicated, but simply put... daylight to render the best color, and then blue-it-up for your viewing pleasure.

Exactly what I do. 12K spectrum all day till the last 3 hours when the ramp down begins then a heavy shift to blue to enjoy all the color in the evening.

 

[merereef]

kessils 160s full blues for 12 hours plus 2 hours ramp up and down ,turned the white lights off orginally due to algae issues but that was around 3.5 years ago now . Only down side is you can not see the full colours of the fish but my zoas look great .

Do you notice good growth? What type of algea issues where you having?

 

[romperstomper]

Do you notice good growth? What type of algea issues where you having?

zoas and duncans seem to do very well ,the algae was just new tank green hair algae (think it was due to using shop bought RO)

 

[Aardvark1134]

Since they evolved for sunlight it's not very reasonable to assume there is any 1 spectrum that by itself is best.
Also if you look at research from the expects...take 10 corals at random and the answer won't be the same for all of them. What is best for a yellow/blue zoa may not be the best for a red sps or a leather or hammer etc.

 

[bar|none]

This is very interesting...following...I am also interested in Mixed reef SPS/LPS with the Red Sea 90

 

[merereef]

This is very interesting...following...I am also interested in Mixed reef SPS/LPS with the Red Sea 90

Red sea are a very good company in general and seem to know what they are talking about...

 

[jda]

Everybody should check out Dr. Joshi's tank. He runs his panels at 100% on all channels all the time. There are others that do this too. IMO, most of the best LED lit reefs do this.

 

[ScottR]

Red sea are a very good company in general and seem to know what they are talking about...

Red Sea had trouble with their lights when they first came out. Lots of overheating. Their skimmers had some mixed reviews as well. I’m a little weary of throwing 100% behind a product name.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

I was watching a BRS VIDEO ON wwc tanks lighting and they have blue 100% and whites on for a few hours then it ramps to just blue only for the rest of the day.. red sea are also suggesting that the blue corals is needed so yeah keep everyones suggestions flowing and thank you

This is what I was thinking of too.

 

[merereef]

This is what I was thinking of too.

We really do need more info on this

 

[happyreefer101]

We really do need more info on this

My acros hardly have any pe and growth until the white on my AI hydra was up to 40% from a mere 15%. Color is also improving.

 

[A. grandis]

The new red sea reefLED lights utilize lights more on the blue end of the spectrum... my question is can we just run a blue light only or do we need a little bit of white too? What are your thoughts?

Your title says:
Which light colour is best for corals!
Please define "best" because for what I see nowadays it's all relative and everyone will tell you differently.

 

[merereef]

Your title says:
Which light colour is best for corals!
Please define "best" because for what I see nowadays it's all relative and everyone will tell you differently.

Sure... by best i mean what colour is best for coral growth, colour and health... but on the back of that wanted to know if corals actually need the white light

 

[A. grandis]

Sure... by best i mean what colour is best for coral growth, colour and health... but on the back of that wanted to know if corals actually need the white light

Simple answer:
Generally speaking:
If you want to have your corals to look what they should look in a shallow water environment, colorful, growing faster than ever and exploding with health you can give them a 6500K metal halide for Christmas and they will love you forever!
If you want them to get colorful and still with good growth and showing amazing health you can get a 10000K or a 14000K metal halide over them.
A 20000K metal halide will still give you good growth and color too, but not like the other ones. 20000K metal halide will still give you much better results than ANY other type of LED or T5.

Why halides? because you asked me the BEST and corals see "color" including UV and IR radiaton. I don't think we should even argue about that. No other artificial light normally found for aquariums will bit halides in that sense.

Yes, of course, corals need "white" light! Just look at the sun and you will understand. No arguments here too because God is the one who made all that anyways!

 

[blasterman]

Simple answer:
Generally speaking:
If you want to have your corals to look what they should look in a shallow water environment, colorful, growing faster than ever and exploding with health you can give them a 6500K metal halide for Christmas and they will love you forever!
If you want them to get colorful and still with good growth and showing amazing health you can get a 10000K or a 14000K metal halide over them.
A 20000K metal halide will still give you good growth and color too, but not like the other ones. 20000K metal halide will still give you much better results than ANY other type of LED or T5.

Why halides? because you asked me the BEST and corals see "color" including UV and IR radiaton. I don't think we should even argue about that. No other artificial light normally found for aquariums will bit halides in that sense.

Yes, of course, corals need "white" light! Just look at the sun and you will understand. No arguments here too because God is the one who made all that anyways!

This guy......

Reef metal halides are not full spectrum and he was just in the zoanthid forum telling people not to use LEDs for zoas /palys which is hysterically bad advice. A 6500k metal halide just puts out more green and yellow / orange spikes than a deeper blue reef halide, and I can post the spectral charts to prove it.

Halide bulbs have narrower bandwidth spikes than LEDs by far - industry fact, not an opinion. Again, google the spectrums for various reef halides and you will see how much color spectrum is missing . A 5600k LED has a far more gradual visible spectrum than tubes or halides. All are missing big chunks of color compared to the sun or true full spectrum artificial light sources like plasma sulfur.

Metal halides do produce some levels of true UV, but this level varies to a large degree depending on filter and jacket types. No proof UV of any sort is required for coral growth. In vitro spectral absorption myths are commonly debunked when the entire macro organism is taken in to account.

'White' is not a color or wavelength. White is a composite of colors that to our eyes looks 'white' (covered in grade school science class). I can produce an off white with just orange and blue. A little higher CRI if I use red green and blue.

Not going to comment on the "IR radiaton" other than do you pronounce 1.21 jigawatts or gigawatts?

If I compare the spectrums of 5600k CCT halide, LED and flourescent light sources they will all have a similiar component of blue with the LEDs having a smidge of far red if it's phillips based LEDs (Crees tend to stop around 630nm) while the tubes and halide have some short spikes below 400nm. The amount of any UV is still trivial.

All 5600 kelvin artificial light sources otherwise have massive amounts of 450nm blue. This is basically the same age old argument if 20k lights grow coral better than 10k lights with just different marketing terms thrown in. Both grow coral well, with water chemistry being far more important. The most amazing SPS tanks I've seen in person are all using black boxes on basic lamp timers with two modes - off / on. If you can't grow coral with simple black boxes the problem exists between keyboard and chair (PEBKAC).

 

[bar|none]

snip...The most amazing SPS tanks I've seen in person are all using black boxes on basic lamp timers with two modes - off / on. If you can't grow coral with simple black boxes the problem exists between keyboard and chair (PEBKAC).

This one got me, thx! Now I don't care about dimmable T5.