just actinic led light

[BeachVacationer]

I just love the blue actinic light and how the colors of the soft and LPS corals pop under such light. Can the corals thrive with just this type of light? If not, will zoas and euphylias stretch out indicating need for more light?

 

[Ron Reefman]

IMHO, most corals can SURVIVE for extended periods of time with just blue spectrum. That is most of the light that most of the zooxanthellae use to do photosynthesis which feeds the coral.

HOWEVER, there are some zooxanthellae that use other spectrum (mostly red) and they will suffer. Also, and very importantly, corals use all kinds of spectrum of light to produce pigments and various other internal chemistries. So days, maybe even weeks (I've never gone more than a week) of just blue or actinic light will probably end up doing some serious harm to all but the very deep water corals that only get blue light because of how deep underwater they are. As you can see by the chart below, only blue/green spectrum light gets more than 60 feet deep.

 

[BlackTip]

Most of corals that are kept in the hobby are not deep-water corals. So, in their natural environment, they have access to all light spectrum. So, why I always read that corals use blue light only? And, if that is true, then why coral propagators don't use blue light exclusively to fuel coral growth?

 

[BeachVacationer]

Thanks guys, that makes a lot of sense.

 

[jayball]

There are some that use all blue t-5 but that has a much broader spectrum than blue LED's. T-5 will supply violet, blue and green light while a blue led will only radiate in about a 20 nm spectrum.

 

[BeachVacationer]

I read this recently about how actinic light as being ideal for reef, but like Jayball mentioned, the site is talking about bulb versus LED. I was wondering if anyone here just uses actinic LED most of the time any how their soft and lps corals are doing under this type of lighting.

Here's the link.
http://m.liveaquaria.com/PIC/article.cfm?aid=42