If budget wasn't an issue, what is the best lighting for sps?

[jda]

It is pretty well established that coral will develop pigments to reflect some UV. Also, some diatoms can/will use the frequency, which means that they will discharge the energy at a lower frequency probably in the visible range. Both COULD lead to more/different color. A typical MH (20K radium and 14K phoenix are what i use... and URI Super Actinic) has UV output even after the glass shield that the water will not totally filter for 3M, so it gets into our tanks at low enough of volume not to kill anything, but it is there. Even though this is putting things together in a dynamic Freakonomics kind of way with info coming from everywhere, it is still possible that UV does make corals more colorful - somebody should study this.

[Allmost]

Originally Posted by Eric Boerner

Is this just your opinion?

From one of my colleagues:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00350022

You can sample a few of the pages.

lol no color spectrum is not my opinion
its a scientific fact.

goto ecotech radion site, check the spectrum the "uv" LEDs give off. if above 400 nm, then it is not UV

I am just saying we use the incorrect term, I am NOT saying corals dont use blue / violet, UVA and UVB spectrum.

are you a zoologist as well ? Kinzie, the author of the article makes itself clear on what he means by UV as I copy pasted below :
from the article :

"While much of this short- wavelength radiation may be absorbed near the sea sur- face in highly productive regions (Jerlov 1950), clear tropical waters are relatively transparent to both UV-A (320 to 400 nm), Glynn 1993) and UV-B (280 to 320 nm)"
"Experimental material
Samples were collected from three plate-like colonies of Montipora verrucosaat depths of 3 to 4 m on the reefs surrounding Coconut Island in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, in June 1990. The colonies chosen were morphologically distinct and separated by several meters, so they are not likely to have been clone mates. At this depth in Kaneohe Bay ~60 to 90% of UV at 317 nm is absorbed (own unpublished data). Samples were returned in seawater to the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) laboratory, where they wer9 divided into pieces of uniform color and thickness. An effort was made to obtain fragments that were as flat as possible with no encrusting organisms on the bottom side. Each piece was given an identifying number and then divided into two halves, each half being randomly assigned to one of the two acclimation treatments. The coral plates were placed in tanks supplied with running seawa- ter and exposed to 80% ambient sunlight for 3 wk until their broken edges had healed so that each piece was entirely covered by living
coral tissue."
"PAR was measured during the course of the experiment by a cosine-corrected sensor placed in the holding tank between the two chambers. Additionally, UV irradiance from 295 to 385 nm was continually monitored by the HIMB weather station with a Quail- metrics Model 3050 UV radiometer. UV radiation data were aver- aged for each hour."


none of the hobby grade fixtures use any LEDs that emit below 400 nm.
I think reef LED lighting companies are just using the term "UV" cause it sounds cool.

[tkeracer619]

Radium 1000w.

[DavidinGA]

Best lighting?

Natural sunlight hands down (solartubes or whatever they are called).

Sorry if anyone else gave a different answer; you're wrong.

[jda]

I don't think that most people would be happy with the way that the coral in their tank looked with a daylight spectrum.

[DavidinGA]

Originally Posted by jda

I don't think that most people would be happy with the way that the coral in their tank looked with a daylight spectrum.

But it's still the best for growth.

Toss some T5/led on to supplement colors...

[hedgedrew]

You can create something like this by mixing bulbs in reflectors. I run 2 in each lumenark. One 20k and one Hamilton 10k. Its really like diving in 10 ft to 20 ft lagoon. And the 10k lighting gives the violets that 20k bulbs like radiums lack. I don't hear lot of guys mixing 20k and daylights. Joe at long island Riverhead 20k tank does same thing. He may have some 14k in there as well.

[hedgedrew]

Btw. For whatever reason. The Hamilton true 10k bulb in either 400 or 250 is the best looking 10k to the eye. And for whatever reason coral seems not to fry under them compared to ushio and xm. If you look at the spectrum graph it's just less peaky in violets and 550. Smoother bulb.

[Eric Boerner]

Originally Posted by jda

It is pretty well established that coral will develop pigments to reflect some UV... ...Both COULD lead to more/different color. A typical MH (20K radium and 14K phoenix are what i use... and URI Super Actinic) has UV output even after the glass shield that the water will not totally filter for 3M, so it gets into our tanks at low enough of volume not to kill anything, but it is there. Even though this is putting things together in a dynamic Freakonomics kind of way with info coming from everywhere, it is still possible that UV does make corals more colorful - somebody should study this.

The science of zooxanthella symbiosis has been extensively studied for a few decades. The reflective properties they get is a direct result of shielding themselves from UV waves (NOT near Ultra-Violet 'light' waves). Though when you start approaching that NM of wavelength, zooxanthella will still react and form pigment. The near-ultra violet NM wavelengths that we can visibly see is what give us the pop we want in the tank. We don't "see" that in nature until you start hitting depths of 160 feet or more on a reef, just when the visible light is reduced down to just the deep blue wavelengths. That is why you see iridescent corals deeper than you do on the reefcrest.

Halides produce an INSANE amount of UV radiation (below our visible spectrum). Far more than you would expect. That's why you burn/suntan when working under them too long. T5's have the same deal but much less UV output. I'd expect that LED's, being less energy draw, would produce far less UV wavelengths than a halide. But its still in there. It might take awhile, but if you left your arm under one, it'll turn red. Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there.

[Eric Boerner]

Originally Posted by Allmost

lol no color spectrum is not my opinion
its a scientific fact.

none of the hobby grade fixtures use any LEDs that emit below 400 nm.
I think reef LED lighting companies are just using the term "UV" cause it sounds cool.

You cannot build a light that produces zero UV radiation.

Ecotech sports a graph on the visible wavelengths that they are shooting for. They are eliminating the UV and IR ratings that their bulbs/fixtures produce because it's irrelevant to us the hobbyists.

I'm not a zoologist, I'm in ecosystem management. I build the toys our marine biologists use to measure such things.

[hedgedrew]

Well the one thing that was obvious to me diving was the the same corals doing well in 10 ft as 50 ft. But yes of course less white. But tell you what. Things like tridac clams only existed with brighter light near surface. And corals like big table tops and stags were nicer at least to my eye lol as we were shallower. Major polyp extention and not as exaggerated color burn.

[romancvik]

hello guys, what about this light? http://aquaristik.giesemann.de/726,2...0LED/T-5,.html
it's new in the market but looks like perfect light for sps reef? your opinions? best of both worlds(led and T5)