I like the paper Matt, but it's a little misleading, as the terms color and spectrum are used like the same thing, which they are not. To the average every day user, it makes sense to call light from a certain spectrum "blue" or "red", but those are colors. The only thing that "full spectrum" means is that the light basically covers the entire spectrum, which is really misleading, which is also why marketers chose that term, because legally, that's all they are allowed to say about their light without misleading their audience. All that full spectrum means is that they cover 400-700 nm light... So you are correct that it is quite misleading. I like your write-up arguing that full spectrum is really misleading for companies to use, as new reefers have no idea what that means, and they buy crappy lights. :mad:
It isn't quite up to par (no pun intended) to use the "Plant Physiology" paper as anecdotal evidence against the paper from the University of Chicago for a multitude of reasons, primarily that the Plant paper uses chlorophyll B, which just knocks it out of the game when talking corals, clams, etc., as they do not carry this chlorophyll, or I should say, the corals and clams we keep in our tanks do not carry that particular protein.
Secondly, corals and plants both carry different photosynthetic "antenna pigments" as the Plant Phys paper points out. Comparing alpha and beta carotenes, xanthophylls and peridinin in corals and clams is not the same as comparing them in plants. Why? Those are just classifications, which make sense, since corals don't eat carrots.
Essentially, reading the biochemistry of the Plant Phys paper do not show anything about the photosynthetic pathways of the more saltwater loving creatures. Energy transfer in biochemistry has to include the proper pathways to make the results relevant, and the pathways are anything but close to one another.
I agree with you about the link, it only serves to further confuse the topic of "full spectrum", however, the link to the paper contained within that is an academic article simply trying to understand the photosynthetic pigments of corals and clams is pretty clear that the pigments that corals and clams use is quite heavily tilted towards the blue spectrum, and to allow a coloration in the red, or ~ 660 nm spectrum, we need to turn down the blues, otherwise the zooxanthellae that live in those animals will predominate, making the coral appear green, so we need to have the right spectral output, intensity and amount of the light we shine down into our tanks in order to most fully see the natural colors present on the reef, which is what
@john.m.cole3 was asking about. Corals will just naturally gravitate to the "green" colors, or combination of 410, 428 and 448 light that emits a green color when activated...
The paper you wrote on lighting was great Matt! Thanks for sharing that, I hope more new reefers read that and understand what you are saying.
