Capt_Cully
Active member
I was talking with my brother in front of my tank yesterday, giving him the rundown. Flipped open the hood to reveal my new LEDs. A little background on him. He has a PhD in physics, specifically for his work with conductive polymers. He is heavily involved in the design and application of flexible display screens being tested and utilized by our military. He is also a professor of electrical engineering at Arizona State. He was just on CNN discussing it a couple of months ago. NO I WASN'T ADOPTED!
His mentor and eventual business partner at Cavendish Labratories in Caimbridge England recently won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with.....LEDs.
Anyway, as it pertains to our hobby, I was showing him how the lighting ends up having a blotchy appearance on the sand bed. My tank has an area where it is bare bottom. This allows the light to shine down onto the stands floor. There you can really appreciate just how blotchy the lighting is.
He was explaining, for scientists, this is a major problem they are working on. THe light source itself is pinpoint and difuses extremely poorly. Many cars headlights are now converting to LEDs. In Asia many cities are converting street lighting to LEDs. Part of the benefit is that they are dirt cheap (tell that to reef lighting manufacturers) and pump out an incredible amount of light for their energy consumption. Trying to get that light to diffuse evenly to the point that they can be utilized in a household setting is what they are working toward.
So what's my point? I believe it was Nate (der_willie) that forwarded his theory about the differences in comparable PAR readings from T5s, MHs, and LEDs. Why are corals requiring so much acclimation despite similar PAR? Like he said, it's much more pinpoint and less diffuse. Does it cause a localized irritation stressing the entire colony? Perhaps. Are PAR meters incapable of measuring the light, at a distance, over smaller surface area, making them less reliable with less diffuse lighting coverages? Sure makes you think.
His mentor and eventual business partner at Cavendish Labratories in Caimbridge England recently won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with.....LEDs.
Anyway, as it pertains to our hobby, I was showing him how the lighting ends up having a blotchy appearance on the sand bed. My tank has an area where it is bare bottom. This allows the light to shine down onto the stands floor. There you can really appreciate just how blotchy the lighting is.
He was explaining, for scientists, this is a major problem they are working on. THe light source itself is pinpoint and difuses extremely poorly. Many cars headlights are now converting to LEDs. In Asia many cities are converting street lighting to LEDs. Part of the benefit is that they are dirt cheap (tell that to reef lighting manufacturers) and pump out an incredible amount of light for their energy consumption. Trying to get that light to diffuse evenly to the point that they can be utilized in a household setting is what they are working toward.
So what's my point? I believe it was Nate (der_willie) that forwarded his theory about the differences in comparable PAR readings from T5s, MHs, and LEDs. Why are corals requiring so much acclimation despite similar PAR? Like he said, it's much more pinpoint and less diffuse. Does it cause a localized irritation stressing the entire colony? Perhaps. Are PAR meters incapable of measuring the light, at a distance, over smaller surface area, making them less reliable with less diffuse lighting coverages? Sure makes you think.
