LEDs washing out fish color

[jrod738776]

I have 3 chinese led fixtures over my tank, similar to reefbreeders value fixtured with full spectrum colors. I can't seem to find a good color that makes corals and fish look good. It is most noticable on my yellow tang and foxface, and the yellow looks so dull almost grayish color. Does anyone else seem to have this problem? It hard to find a good power for the lights that isnt too blue or white, and also makes everything look good.

[d2mini]

Under my Radions, my yellow tang is so intense he's almost orange sometimes.
Multicolored wrasses all look great, my blue tang (Dori) is just as intense, same with the orange of my snowflake clown, the flame hawkfish couldn't be any redder, even the pink spots on my goby look good.
Your light must be missing or deficient in certain spectrums or lacking the control to adjust them?

[Fish_Freek]

Any idea why the difference? I notice the same thing in my tank. I run two EG 120s over my 75 reef. LED layout is: 32-460nm, 19-12k(for white) and 4-420nm. Running 70% on blue chanel and 30% on white. Any input on how to improve the colors?

[tdb320reef]

Originally Posted by jrod738776

I have 3 chinese led fixtures over my tank, similar to reefbreeders value fixtured with full spectrum colors. I can't seem to find a good color that makes corals and fish look good. It is most noticable on my yellow tang and foxface, and the yellow looks so dull almost grayish color. Does anyone else seem to have this problem? It hard to find a good power for the lights that isnt too blue or white, and also makes everything look good.

Take in RAW and manual white balance. As I see it seems that leds not only are intense in blue but lack yellow reflection. This makes yellows look more orange. It wasn't until I added MH to supplement my LEDS to where I see true yellow to the tank. but Manual WB is the key.

[d2mini]

Originally Posted by tdb320reef

Take in RAW and manual white balance. As I see it seems that leds not only are intense in blue but lack yellow reflection. This makes yellows look more orange. It wasn't until I added MH to supplement my LEDS to where I see true yellow to the tank. but Manual WB is the key.

I could be wrong but I don't think he was talking about taking photos.

[Brian Crook]

d2mini, those are some fantastic shots! Great colour - is that how it appears in real life?

[FullBoreReefer]

Unless it's just me but in the few months since I've went to AI Hydras, my emerald crabs are turning White'ish lol

[d2mini]

Originally Posted by Brian Crook

d2mini, those are some fantastic shots! Great colour - is that how it appears in real life?

Thanks.
Yes, that is how they look most of the day.

[jrod738776]

I wasnt referring to photos, just in actually looking at my tank. Yellows and greens just look grayish almost white. Maybe i need to turn the intensity down?

[GHill762]

What whites are you running? High Kelvin whites (cool white) give terrible color rendition and can leave the tank looking anemic - fish, coral everything.. Eco tech solves that by tossing yellows and other odd non-useful (for photosynthesis anyway) leds into the array.. Neutral and warm white will give you the rich color you're looking for. I can't believe people are still using 12k whites..

[GHill762]

Quality foods will help too..

[jrod738776]

My leds have 4500k and 6500k whites, so i think thats well covered. Not really sure what the issue is then.

[GHill762]

Maybe it's the fish? Do you have pics? Maybe the fish needs less stress or better nutrition?

[zachfishman]

Nice pics d2mini. What camera did you use?

[ca1ore]

Go to a paint store, get a bunch of those paint swatch cards, hold them under your light and see how the color rendition is. If it is fine, then you have dull fish and need to feed different foods, and use a vitamin supplement.

[GHill762]

Originally Posted by ca1ore

Go to a paint store, get a bunch of those paint swatch cards, hold them under your light and see how the color rendition is. If it is fine, then you have dull fish and need to feed different foods, and use a vitamin supplement.

That's a pretty good idea

[TropTrea]

I have been playing with DIY LED lights for a while now. Some of my early LED set ups gave the same issues originaly listed here. The big issue I found is the peoper selection of White or full spectrum LED's.

Warm Whtes are usualy in the 3,200K to 4,000K range. They produce strong RED and Orange light but lack in the Blue and Green parts of the Spectrum.

Nuetral Whites are usualy in the 4,000K to 5,500K range. If they were tuned to 5,000K they would produce a very equal power spectrum with an equal amount of light in all ranges.

Daylight, or Cool wHites are balanced to look like the shade areas on a clear summer day with a K temoerature in the 5,500K to 7,500K range. They produce a slightly bluish look with a stronger Blue spectrum and a weaker Red Spectrum.

Specialty LED's 10,000K, 12,000K, 14,000K and even now 20,000K LED's re much stronger in the blue part of the spectrum and lack not only Red but also Orange and even Yellow in there spectrum.

Having built my forst LED fixture using cool whites I observed the same issue as you listed. I tried adding Red LED's but that peaked the reds nicly but did noting for the orange and Yellows. My second attmept was using a lower ratio of 10,000K LED's to Blue LED's but this made the problem look even worst. Now I only use Neutral Whites in the 4,000K to 4,500K range and the reflective reds and yellows realy pop in the tank as true and bright colors. I have also found that I need much less white LED's using this lower color temperature and usualy build my lights with ratio of roughly 1 watt of white lighting to 4 watts of Blue lighing.

The big thing to consier i that all LED's are not the same. The colored LED's have a very narrow color spectrum. If you get a 455nm Royal blue LED and if gives our 100 usints of light at 455nm, it is usualy ging out less than 50 units of light at 450 and 460nm, with colose to no light at 445n and 465 nm. This same thing happens with Red leds. If you have a 620nm red your getting near no light at 635nm and if you add another 680 nm red LED you will get near no light from it at 665nm. Now if the coloration of the fish is so that is reflecting the light back at you at 650nm your not getting much benifit out of the red LED's for that fish. However a RED ORange fish with a 620 nm pigment will reflect back at you fantasticly.

Fortunatly the Fuller spectrum LED's do not have this issue. They are broader spectrumed however even these have a weak ares in the 500 nm to 540 nm range which is in the blue greens colors compared to natural light.

[zachts]

simple fix is order some remote phosphor domes to put over some of the Royal blue leds to increase the yellow or red light in your tank. they are very cheap, same price or less than an led lens from Arrow electronics or from digikey, look for chromalit domes the little ones....... grab a few different colors and experiment, they can be tacked on with a hot glue gun and easily swapped out. you could even use the discs glued on over the factory optics for the same result even on the outside of the splash guard.

if you were near by I'd donate a few to play with but it would be cheaper to just order some than me send you a few of the spares I have laying around.

[zachfishman]

Originally Posted by zachts

simple fix is order some remote phosphor domes to put over some of the Royal blue leds to increase the yellow or red light in your tank. they are very cheap, same price or less than an led lens from Arrow electronics or from digikey, look for chromalit domes the little ones....... grab a few different colors and experiment, they can be tacked on with a hot glue gun and easily swapped out. you could even use the discs glued on over the factory optics for the same result even on the outside of the splash guard.

if you were near by I'd donate a few to play with but it would be cheaper to just order some than me send you a few of the spares I have laying around.

Can you post a link to these products?

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by zachts

simple fix is order some remote phosphor domes to put over some of the Royal blue leds to increase the yellow or red light in your tank. they are very cheap, same price or less than an led lens from Arrow electronics or from digikey, look for chromalit domes the little ones....... grab a few different colors and experiment, they can be tacked on with a hot glue gun and easily swapped out. you could even use the discs glued on over the factory optics for the same result even on the outside of the splash guard.

if you were near by I'd donate a few to play with but it would be cheaper to just order some than me send you a few of the spares I have laying around.

For some reason this does not seem to logical to me without drasticly reducing the light output. The Blue LED's only produce blue light. So if the phospor domes are converting this blue light to other wave lenghts there would be a loss in effeciency. This is the first I heard about this idea can you give us some links to explain how these work?

[zachfishman]

I'm under the impression that the blue light excites phosphors in the domes which then emit their own light (this is actually how the yellow-capped Philips L-Prize LED bulbs work). There probably is some drop in efficiency vs a white LED, but how much I don't know.

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by zachfishman

I'm under the impression that the blue light excites phosphors in the domes which then emit their own light (this is actually how the yellow-capped Philips L-Prize LED bulbs work). There probably is some drop in efficiency vs a white LED, but how much I don't know.

Yes I did find a few web sites that explained this. Your description is about right. however looking at effeciency the white LED's are now claiming to be getting about 120+ lumnens per watt. And from I saw in some of there data they were getting roughly 80 lumns per watt with the conversions.

The ones I also were fitted more for the multi LED with 6 to 10 LED's per Lens. Yes they seemed like a good idea for the replacement of standard light bulbs but I'm not sure about the aquarium or reef application. The light distribution plots showed a majority of light going out to the sides rather out the top or bottom of the lens. But I imagine a good reflector could redirect this as a spot light.

If zachts is using these perhaps he can give us some pictures and a write up on how he is effeciently using these on his reef tank. It would take a lot of the speculation out of this idea.

[zachts]

http://www.intematix.com/products/chromalit

The DOM15 size fits nicely over a single LED. They are only as efficient as the Blue LED that is used, no different than with white LEDs. Remote phosphor is said to be more efficient at converting the blue light however. My original thought was to use some 420 or 430nm violet LEDs to power these..........a white LED that gives good fluorescent color pop in corals, a novel idea right

I keep changing my mind on how best to implement the idea for reef lighting and haven't gotten a full build done yet. For reef lighting probably a build similar to a can light that you would see using this technology which would direct all the light down into the tank rather than our and around like the domes do. I'll post a few pictures of some of the things I've cobbled together with them when I have a chance to dig out my camera.

The largest dome size fits perfect to the output of a luxeon M and is crazy bright run at 1 amp! It also neatly covers 4 star chips. How fun would it be to just do an all Blue LED build and not have to worry about which whites you will like, just swap out some phosphor lenses to change the spectrum...... Insidently there are a few companies that can create custom reef specific phosphors for these for a small and reasonable price which the comercial reef lighting industry will hopefully jump on in the future.