No white light

[North Borders]

I'm running the CoralLab AB+ on my G4 XR15 pros. Corals look kind of drab. Others rave about it, but I just haven't seen that "pop" in my tank yet. I swapped today to a program WWC gave me for their show tank. They run a 13 hr photo period. First 5ish are the AB+ with 20% RGW and blues/uv maxed and then the last 8 hours are pure UV/Blues at 100%.

I like the pure blue look much much more.

 

[Lasse]

The thing that you guys are missing on this is that there are two different color scales.

So let's say your mixing paint using the standard color wheel we all learned about as kids. Red, blue and yellow creates black in the perfect mixture. Red and blue together make purple. Etc. This is called "subtractive color mixing"

Light sources work off of "additive color mixing" and it has the opposite effect of th subtractive color wheel. So RGB light sources combined creates white. It's not a trick though. The actual color that's created is white and it is the same white that a white LED would create.

No – its not the whole truth and I´m not missing anything

I´m not talking about colours – I`m talking about light – its two different things.

Definition of White Light

The electromagnetic spectrum is comprised of a variety of types of electromagnetic waves, each with different wavelengths or frequencies. For example, x-rays, gamma rays, infrared radiation and ultraviolet radiation are examples of electromagnetic waves. Only a small portion of the spectrum of wavelengths can be seen by the human eye. This visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is called the visible spectrum. This shows the full spectrum of electromagnetic radiation and highlights the small part of the spectrum that can be called the visible spectrum.

White light is defined as the complete mixture of all of the wavelengths of the visible spectrum. This means that if I have beams of light of all of the colors of the rainbow and focus all of the colors onto a single spot, the combination of all of the colors will result in a beam of white light.

However the human eye has two types of photoreceptors: rods and cones. Of this – the cones is the one responsible for our ability to see colours. The cones is in reality of three different types, one that is sensitive for blue wavelengths for green wavelengths and one sensitive for red wavelengths. What colour we will see depends on the intensity each of this 3 different type of cones will have. But this also means that if we see a light equally mixed from three monochrome light sources that have blue, green and red wavelengths – the eye and the brain says – white light. Before the LED revolution – this did not matter so much because there was few monochromatic light sources – but today its matter

Below you can see the spectra of three different light compositions that for our eye looks like white light

Perfect Daylight



Common low Kelvin phosphorus coated LED


Spectra from RGB


For our brain it has no importance because we will see all three of these scenarios as white light but for organisms using photosynthesis – it has a huge importance which type of “white light” we give them. Corals (zooxanthella) use much of the blue wavelengths (between 400 – 470 nm) and probably most of them also the red wavelengths (600 – 660). The RGB trick in order to give a good amount of wavelengths active in photosynthesis and to give us (read me) a pleasant light to see our corals and fishes consists of a huge amount of light between 400 – 470 nm, some light around 420 – 430 nm and rather much at the wavelengths between 600 and 660 nm. This light composition should fulfil three different tasks

1. Give a lot of wavelengths active in the photosynthesis of zooxanthella
   
2. Trick our brain to see a pleasant white light and also give us the reflective colours of the fishes – mostly green, orange and red colours
   
3. Not give a huge amount of light between 500 and 600 nm. In this span – our eyes is very sensitive for intensity and if there is a lot of light in these wavelengths – it will block our ability to see the weak colours of coral fluorescence. In pure blue light – we see this fluorescence clearly but as we add more wavelengths between 500 and 600 nm its fade away.

The trick will be – give enough of wavelengths that are active in photosynthesis – give enough of wavelengths in order to mimic white light and to show the reflecting colours of fishes and corals and not to give too much of wavelengths between 500 and 600 nm that block us for seeing the fluorescence of corals .

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Wh00pS32]

Here are my settings for my Prime HD 7" above the water for my 12 gal Nano Cube (this is for acclimation since the fixture is new)

UV/violet/blue/RB are all 40%
R/G are 0% since they encourage algae growth
White is 15-20%...

I have run my Prime with red & green at 30% for the last 2 years, in that time i have had zero algae problems.

 

[Jeff Heinle]

How many people have tried this after reading the thread? I did it this evening. I run GHL Mitras 7206. I dropped the 7700k and the 6200k white lights down to about 20%. I increased red to 50% and green to around 40%. It's an increadible visual difference. Fish and corals have way more pop. The color to my eye is more purple. Much more pleasing of a spectrum. The spectral graph that GHL control center produces was interesting as well. Even a 14k light with no white LED's looked more blue to my eye than my previous 17k spectrum with white lights. As someone stated you limit the main spectrum the human eye sees the most and there fore are allowed to see more of the blue spectrum despite the actual color temp being "whiter". Curious to see how algae and corals react! Lastly when trying to take photos the camera captures a much more true to life not so blue image.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

I run my tank warmer (red/green and a few other disco light color) at 85% for 4 hours and not a single strand of algae is visible. Come on guys, give your tank some real lights... :D

 

[Deniss]

The light spectrum depends though, i guess acro's can take more red then deepwater corals. As the red get filtered out in distance, that's atleast what i think...still a big noob in lighting :)

 

[NickNiz]

I'm trying out the reds and greens, but only 5-10% max. Most of the lighting schedules I've seen from people have them extremely low compared to the other colors! Right now I'm running (at peak)

UV: 25%
B/RB/V: 40%
G/R: 8%
CW: 15%

I'm still acclimating my corals to this light, so I eventually want to go up (with B/RB/V at 90-100%) but I have really been enjoying this ratio so far.

 

[ifarmer]

My LFS has had some stock not move in years and his lights are always under blue lights. He's running basic black boxes. I have similar black boxes and run my whites at the lowest setting figuring the corals need it.

Blue looks nice but that is not what the actual ocean or reef environment is made of.
Those that do just blue i think because their corals looks bad and that is why they are using just blue so that their corals dont look very terrible when people come to see it.
Your LFS livestocks comes and goes so you dont know the long term success of your LFS livestocks
Ask them (or even yourself) to grow some sps with just blue light only for a year and see.

 

[DLuce510]

Blue looks nice but that is not what the actual ocean or reef environment is made of.
Those that do just blue i think because their corals looks bad and that is why they are using just blue so that their corals dont look very terrible when people come to see it.
Your LFS livestocks comes and goes so you dont know the long term success of your LFS livestocks
Ask them (or even yourself) to grow some sps with just blue light only for a year and see.

Refer to the video on page one. Check out Jason Fox tanks, he pretty much just runs all blue and his corals look pretty amazing to me whatever he's doing to his systems that's what I would like to do to mine. He States in it as well when you swim down 100 to 150 ft where most of our corals come from it is almost pure blue.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Some people loves blue looking ocean at home. It is true that after certain depth, the surrounding looks blue and if majority of your corals comes from this region, blue light will suits them well. Running more whites (I like to call it warmer lights) for a certain period will produce more color pigments than you can imagine. Another reason why reefers prefers blue more because they are scared of algae. You shouldn't!

 

[sawdonkey]

I recently switched my LEDs to another LED that had much (way too much) more white diodes than my previous lights. In not a very long amount of time, my corals browned out, had no PE, and started to STN. Meanwhile the SPS in my sump, still under an old fixture, looked great. This confirmed it was not a water issue. I've now switched back to my old fixtures, and even took some of the whites out of those. My SPS is looking much better after just a few weeks. Moral of my story, too much white was bad for my Coral.

I'd never go all blue, because it just looks unnatural. However, I only run my whites for about 4.5 hours a day. This is something new for me as I've always ran the. At a higher percent for a longer time. Corals are responding well.

 

[hart24601]

I think what Jason Fox shows, and others have determined as well, is that if you have good actinic spectrum you don't need anything else. Clearly JF has a very successful commercial business with growing/coloring up and selling coral using very little to zero white light. I am pretty sure he has a big interest in growing out frags of say homewrecker ASAP and coloring them up to sell for a grand plus each - works for him for that purpose it's good enough for us.

I think some of the biggest realizations over the past decade with reefkeeping is that there are many, many ways to have growing beautiful corals.

Basically run whatever you like. Who cares what other people say (unless they live with you!!!). Some people just love blue tanks, some purple tanks, others enjoy 8k sunlight tanks and everything in between. If a person is having issues it's not the spectrum of light causing trouble.

 

[DLuce510]

Felt inspired by JFox and figured what the heck im goin for it! 7 Blue+ 1 Actinic. I dont hate it at all!

 

[Nano sapiens]

Refer to the video on page one. Check out Jason Fox tanks, he pretty much just runs all blue and his corals look pretty amazing to me whatever he's doing to his systems that's what I would like to do to mine. He States in it as well when you swim down 100 to 150 ft where most of our corals come from it is almost pure blue.

My understanding is that collectors typically collect from where they can free dive (scuba is expensive), so not very deep. Most of the corals in the LFS will be adapted to some amount of the warm colors. It may well be that Jason Fox has connected with people who will collect for him in deeper water and that's likely where he is finding some of the more unusual strains of coral that he sells. Naturally, these corals would be adapted to mostly violet/blue spectrum.

With the first reef tank I built in 1985, I experimented with all actinic tubes for around 2 years. It was a dim tank, but it grew zoanthids like crazy! I've been experimenting for a few years with my DIY LED array and have run the extremes from virtually no white LEDs (I used the OCWs from LED Group Buy to produce 'white' light) to what I currently run today...which is a moderate intensity white channel combo of neutral and warm whites which stimulate non-fluorescent chromoproteins.

I've had good results, either with, or without, white LEDs.

Ralph.

 

[Wh00pS32]

My understanding is that collectors typically collect from where they can free dive (scuba is expensive), so not very deep..

Most collectors in places like indonesia use self rigged air compressors and an air line to a regulator and can get down pretty deep (over 100 ft). These type of rigs are really cheap to run and they don't need expensive scuba gear.

 

[sawdonkey]

If a person is having issues it's not the spectrum of light causing trouble.

I respectfully disagree. It's not often the issue, but can very well be the issue. I recently lost a bunch of SPS after switching lights to a light that had WAY too much white spectrum. Corals in my growout sump (same water) under my old lights never skipped a beat. Switched back to old light (much bluer) and corals are turning right back around.

 

[Velcro]

You people with this all blue must have completely different SPS than me... I'm running my warm whites at 50% on my photon v2 which gives by far the best color rendition of the nice stuff. Much less than that and it's just a washed out mess.

Here's a good example.. the first two pictures are like 100% blues and 30% warm white. The third is 100% blues and 100% warm white. You're really telling me that heavy blue is a better look?

 

[hart24601]

I respectfully disagree. It's not often the issue, but can very well be the issue. I recently lost a bunch of SPS after switching lights to a light that had WAY too much white spectrum. Corals in my growout sump (same water) under my old lights never skipped a beat. Switched back to old light (much bluer) and corals are turning right back around.

Surprising to hear. Many people in the 90s insisted on running 8k which is very white. I rememeber the huge fights when 12k came out and how "all that blue would kill your corals". Then 18k bulbs and finally 20k. I think Sanjay still runs his tanks quite white - all channels 100% on radions which is around 8k I think.

 

[snappa1953]

This two Pictures are taken 10 minutes ago. No White LEds. No photoshoping. it looks like this!

​

Sincerely Lasse

Fantastic - have I missed the RGB settings you have your lights on?

 

[sawdonkey]

You people with this all blue must have completely different SPS than me... I'm running my warm whites at 50% on my photon v2 which gives by far the best color rendition of the nice stuff. Much less than that and it's just a washed out mess.

Here's a good example.. the first two pictures are like 100% blues and 30% warm white. The third is 100% blues and 100% warm white. You're really telling me that heavy blue is a better look?

Looking better vs what the corals like better are two different things. I think corals like really blue light more, but to my eye, I like some white.