High Density LED PAR?

[mntnbighker]

This question will probably be presumed to be focused on Kessil but they are not the only high density array LED game in town from what I saw in various MACNA videos. Despite many folks claiming to have too much PAR in some cases with high density LED lighting. Is anyone (other than me) skeptical about such a small LED array being capable of producing the kind of PAR numbers you want to grow coral? There must be a limit to the number of photons per square millimeter the chip and phosphor can emit. And more conventional LED lights simply have more square millimeters. Of course I'm sure there are efficiency gains to be had with a really well designed lens. I have A360W's over my tank, but I wonder if I could be seeing way better growth with something else. One strategy I have considered is having the Kessil's for tunable "appearance" lighting, and something else for raw PAR. But I don't want to resort to anything that produces a LOT of heat and sucks electricity. In my case I simply don't have it available anyway. What about some of the high powered LED bulbs (maybe 5000K) you find at Home Depot, as opposed to the spendy hobby industry lighting? I just recently installed a 120W equiv 5000K LED from Lowes over my fuge.

I found this MACNA talk pretty interesting:

[rtparty]

All I say is don't get confused thinking because you have a lot of PAR, that you automatically have enough PUR (usable radiation.)

[xmas_one]

250w Radiums are the best high density PAR emitters IMO.

[mntnbighker]

Originally Posted by rtparty

All I say is don't get confused thinking because you have a lot of PAR, that you automatically have enough PUR (usable radiation.)

Yeah, I know, and interestingly my local LFS runs their entire (pretty large) operation on Kessil A360's. The ONLY halide lights in the place are over the sumps.