LED lighting requirement for SPS

[FragIt Dan]

Originally Posted by Kafudafish

/\ what he said. White light is made up of every color which makes it full spectrum

There aren't red,green, blue, suns in the sky.

Just to clarify, white light CAN be made up of every color, but not to a significant degree. This is why you might choose a cool white vs a warm white light. With respect to keeping corals, white LEDs do not meet a coral's photosynthetic requirements on their own, and thus I would argue are not full spectrum.

Originally Posted by mrhasan

Just to add something (since I drooled over and studied full spectrum LEDs vs BW LEDs few months ago):

there's no legitimate proof that full spectrum helps coral growth. For now, people only still to it for aesthetics. Or maybe some study did came up showing full spectrum helps coral growth

The article found here is one that summarizes the need to provide light to corals across a much wider spectrum than most commercially available LED fixtures do.

Figure 4 shows zooxanthellae light absorption... of particular interest (to me) is the area between 400-440nm, which most LED fixtures lack.

Figure 8 shows what you get out of different wavelengths from your corals. Take a look at the spectrum below 440nm and the fluorescent pigments that glow as a result of exposure to this light (you get no purples without UV light).
Figure 23 shows you output from a high quality, commercially available LED fixture. Again, note the absence of support in the UV spectrum.

I have been testing LEDs for the past 6 months or so and have just installed a "full spectrum" DIY fixture on my frag tank. Initial testing of this has shown ridiculous color response from corals exceeding what I am currently getting from 14K Hamilton bulbs with actinic supplementation.

There are many other 'scientific' articles out there supporting the need for full spectrum lighting over corals. Of course you can play with the term 'need' and say that they will 'survive' under something less, but none of us are looking for that . Ask anyone who has moved from good Halides to LEDs what they think of their colors...

Just my $0.02,
Dan