MH bulbs

[Aquarist007]

thanks---I am starting to get this a little better but I still don't quite get it----- and I should by now-----

I thought the blue light from a 14,000 k was indication of its wave length--blue light being in the 400levels and this was the wave length corals prefered?

appreciate your patience here---its just one of the concepts that I have had a rough time understanding

 

[bertoni]

The color temperature, or more precisely, the CCT, is intended to give a comparison of the spectral output of a bulb to the output of a theoretical black body. Temperatures above about 14,000 K are meaningless, and manufacturers don't alway give an accurate CCT. Reefkeeping.com has some article on the terminology.

In any case, the color temperature doesn't state anything about the efficiency of the bulb directly. For whatever reason, the higher temperature bulbs tend to be less efficient.