Why so much blue (lights)

[cvrle1]

I dont have an axe to grind, or anything of sort, but curious why a lot of reef keepers love having their lights setup to be so blue. I get that corals will show different colors under blue light, and they will look all neon, but to me at least this looks so unnatural and fake. I have never dove anywhere where water is such blue color that corals are all neon looking, it doesnt exist.

To make things even worse, online stores are doing this too. Someone who doesnt know better thinks they are getting some amazing coral, only to find out it is regular run of the mill coral under normal light spectrum. And a kicker is they probably spent 10X more than they should have cause it had some fancy name to go with neon color.

Am I missing something here?

 

[Mastiffsrule]

+1

Risking being shamed by the community, but I thought it you said it. Thanks

 

[MTBake]

I'm curious as well. Following

 

[Fourstars]

That drives me crazy, are you trying to hide something? He started it ^^^^

 

[chefjpaul]

Have you been night diving? Its pretty insane, especially florescent night dives.

I enjoy both "day" spectrum and finish off with a little blue to enjoy the florescent colors.

Both are natural colors, and not fake at all, as it's actual evolution.

 

[watchguy123]

Everyone has a spectrum or color they prefer whether white or blue or something in between. It is so cool that one can choose the lighting according to personal preference.

There are those that prefer as you do a more natural look, one that may be familiar from diving. Of course, if you dive deep enough, if you cut yourself by accident, then you see green blood. So realistic color also relates to depth.

I hated windex (blue) colored tanks for the longest time. Even after adding reefbrite xhos, I just didn’t like the “blue” tank even if so many corals fluoresced so dramatically. It took about 18 months of getting use to the two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening of the reefbrites.

Now, my favorite time is when those crazy blues just light up the tank. And because of that preference, I look at prospective coral purchases when I can under blue and white lights cause they offer different choices. My choice, and certainly not everyone else’s choice, is to favor corals that vividly fluoresce under blues.

In terms of online sellers, photography still needs to be reasonably accurate to whatever color spectrum you wish. Sometimes, colors can be manipulated versus corrected. And yes, reef tank lighting of any spectrum requires color correction because of camera limitations with white balance. There are exceptions of course.

 

[cvrle1]

Have you been night diving? Its pretty insane, especially florescent night dives.

I enjoy both "day" spectrum and finish off with a little blue to enjoy the florescent colors.

Both are natural colors, and not fake at all, as it's actual evolution.

I did go night diving, but just cold water locally here. Cant say I saw those kinds of colors truth be told, perhaps because it is cold water, so its a whole different ball game.

 

[cvrle1]

... I hated windex (blue) colored tanks for the longest time. Even after adding reefbrite xhos, I just didn’t like the “blue” tank even if so many corals fluoresced so dramatically. It took about 18 months of getting use to the two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening of the reefbrites. Now, my favorite time is when those crazy blues just light up the tank. And because of that preference, I look at prospective coral pirchases when I can under blue and white lights cause they offer different choices. My choice, and certainly not everyone else’s choice, is to favor corals that vividly fluoresce under blues.
...

Few hours a day makes sense actually, and for some reason (perhaps foolishly) I was under the impression that folks keep this "windex" colored tanks throughout the day. I can definitely see having blues for few hours a day (morning/night) with normal rampup and ram down for the remainder of the day. Never thought of it that way clearly.

 

[LowLi]

it hides my algae

 

[golfer88]

Everyone has their theory’s on what grows coral for example Jason Fox is a huge blue light guy and Sanjay is a huge white light guy but both grow coral well.

 

[cracker]

The real blue doesn't appeal to me, just my preference & everyone has their's
Is the super blue beneficial for the coral?

 

[tdowning]

I think as someone else stated it's just preference. I mainly run blues because I like how it looks. My fish and coral are all happy, healthy and growing, so I'm happy.

 

[PaulPerger]

I am very new to this, but I do know that blue and red colours of the spectrum are the most useful for photosynthesis and most corals grow better under the blue lights.

I, too, font care gir the blued out look and I plan to run my lights on high blue spectrum while I am work and a more white light while I am home so I can enjoy the corals.

 

[Reefcowboy]

I think part of the reason is the hobby evolved through the years. In the 90’s bleached corals and colorful fish were it...then later on people tried to maintain browned corals alive with more lbs of live rock than gallons of water.

I think many of us, myself included try to mimic the ocean with a more natural approach but lately the hobby has become a lot about collecting hyped, rare and exotic corals.

After the popularization of leds with the popping of colors to the max, many hobbyists only care to display colors under actinics.

Just look at some of the popular reef shows around...some look like a rave party with so much blue light and names of corals like “valentine day massacre”, “armor of God” and so on are all people want to look for, lol

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Why is your favorite color pink and Jim Bob's favorite color green?

Let people enjoy things. You like white, they like blue. We all like coral.

 

[Mjrenz]

I posed the same question to the owner of the lfs store I use. He explained to me that not only does it display the colors better but other colors in the light spectrum that look more natural, especially red, promote more algae growth

 

[KrisReef]

People ramp up their lights because they can, and for lots of the reasons already mentioned. I run 14k mh which people describe as a nice mix of white & blue.

Night diving in California during bio luminescent red tide is an incredible light show, with green it blue light provided by microbes. If you ever get a chance to do this you will be amazed at the low white spectrum you will see. Imagine fish swimming by that light up in the water as the move about. It does look unreal, and god made it that way because He could.

 

[Crustaceon]

This hobby is like a dog show if people had trouble keeping dogs before and now have it all figured out. All that’s left is freaking out over what has a green ring or spot and where said green ring or spot is located. I can picture a judge picking up an acro or zoa by it’s haunches, holding its tail up and checking its teeth. The same goes for equipment.

 

[jtl]

Sometimes the over the top blue look we see in posted pictures is not that blue in person. I like my lights to favor the blue spectrum but even when I put on the whites the pic still looks very blue. I just think the corals look better with less white.

 

[shred5]

I dont have an axe to grind, or anything of sort, but curious why a lot of reef keepers love having their lights setup to be so blue. I get that corals will show different colors under blue light, and they will look all neon, but to me at least this looks so unnatural and fake. I have never dove anywhere where water is such blue color that corals are all neon looking, it doesnt exist.

To make things even worse, online stores are doing this too. Someone who doesnt know better thinks they are getting some amazing coral, only to find out it is regular run of the mill coral under normal light spectrum. And a kicker is they probably spent 10X more than they should have cause it had some fancy name to go with neon color.

Am I missing something here?

Some people like it and they can it is their aquarium. To each his own.

Personally I do not like the Windex look myself.