Green light and SPS coloration

[brad]

A lot of tanks are missing a lot of green wavelength light compared to natural lighting on a reef. To me, these tanks look purplish blue versus the greenish blue of the real ocean. I brought this up on another board discussing my plans for a LED fixture, and someone pointed out that Acropora in the "purplish" tanks is far more colorful than Acropora in the ocean.

So I wanted to ask people who keep very colorful SPS if they feel that more natural light would cause it to brown out. If you feel this way, please let me know if you think:
A) Reef tanks have less green light, which makes Acropora less colorful.
B) Reef tanks have more red light, which makes Acropora more colorful.
C) Reef tanks have more light overall or at some wavelengths, which makes Acropora more colorful.
D) Reef tanks have more colorful Acropora for reasons other than lighting.

Of course, feel free to share other opinions too.

 

[Allmost]

I do not think we have more colorfull corals in our tanks than their parents in the ocean.

but doesnt matter what we do, we can not produce the same lighting as the sun ... put a prism in front of any reef lighting, even MH, and then do the same under sun.

 

[brad]

I do not think we have more colorful corals in our tanks than their parents in the ocean.

A very interesting opinion.

but doesn't matter what we do, we can not produce the same lighting as the sun

I agree, at least right now. However the question is whether or not we should try to get a close as we can.

 

[brad]

I do not think we have more colorful corals in our tanks than their parents in the ocean.

A very interesting opinion.

but doesn't matter what we do, we can not produce the same lighting as the sun

I agree, at least right now. However the question is whether or not we should try to get a close as we can.

 

[Allmost]

A very interesting opinion.




I agree, at least right now. However the question is whether or not we should try to get a close as we can.

the Pics of ocean you see, are taken with bad camera, and white balance is off, look up some nice pics of Great barrier reef. the corals are as colorfull as our reef, in fact, we use Zeovit and other methods to make them look that good !

regarding artificial lighting ... I wouldnt count on it unless we make some ground breaking discoveries in Quantum physics... currently, we make light, [in MH lighting for example] by heating and Exciting a gas, the atoms of gas, when excited, will shift their electrons from the orbit it is in, to another one[Orbits are fixed] , each downshift, would mean a certain Wavelenght of light is produced ... this means that we only produce certain different Wavelenghts, unlike SUN, which has a full spectrum ! LEDs and other light sources all work based on the same principle. Sun can make a rainbow, artificial lighting will not make a full rainbow, except it would make sharp RED, then GREEN, then ....
ok Ill stop here haha

 

[brad]

There are definite limits to what I can do with current technology, however I can deliberately make my lighting less like natural sunlight. This is what most people do when they build LED fixtures that put out lots of red light with little or no green light. I don't like that look, and I don't want it in my tank. My concern is that I will never get as nice SPS coloration under a light that puts out lots of green light with a little red light.

I've seen endless fields of green/brown Acropora, both in photos and with my own eyes. Even the tank of the month on here that used natural sunlight was less colorful than most of the nicer 20k halide tanks. Yes, colorful Acropora exists in the wild, but they are few and far between, and generally more subdued than the electric colors I see in some tanks.

 

[Allmost]

There are definite limits to what I can do with current technology, however I can deliberately make my lighting less like natural sunlight. This is what most people do when they build LED fixtures that put out lots of red light with little or no green light. I don't like that look, and I don't want it in my tank. My concern is that I will never get as nice SPS coloration under a light that puts out lots of green light with a little red light.

I've seen endless fields of green/brown Acropora, both in photos and with my own eyes. Even the tank of the month on here that used natural sunlight was less colorful than most of the nicer 20k halide tanks. Yes, colorful Acropora exists in the wild, but they are few and far between, and generally more subdued than the electric colors I see in some tanks.

well, firstly, we collect nice corals, and grow them and keep them just like there are alot of ugly birds, but a bird keeper's cage is full of colorfull ones
we rarely collect ugly corals, or fish, or inverts.

with LED, you can control the amount of each. Wavelenght, thats the whole beauty of it.