Disclaimer: I find that postign this in any sponsor forum would be wrong, as they are equally bad.
I've been looking into LED builds for a long time now, both DIY and premade fixtures.
What always gets me is the CRI of the white LEDs. How come there are no good 8-10 000 Kelvin 90 CRI chips?
From what I can gather from Cree datasheets, the high (90ish) CRI chips are yellow (Typically ~2600 Kelvin), and the high Kelvin (Cool white, typically 6500 Kelvin, for instance, the Philips are even worse) have a very low (65-70ish) CRI.
What we, as coral keepers want, is something as close to 6000 Kelvin 90+ CRI chips, lest we want our white chips to be electricity waste over our tanks.
Reason I'm saying this is simply because I do not want "most of my light" from the "white side" of the light to be yellow or red. A MH or T5 with similar Kelvin rating would have a much better color index (makeup of color) than any white LED chip currently available.
100 CRI basically has an even spread on the color spectrum (the sun), and all corals have adapted to this (based on what's left after traveling through x amounts of water, remember red, orange and yellow goes first). When we try to grow corals with totally wrong spectrum peaks, we simply lower their defenses (kill their symbiotic algae, who are not adapted to massive amounts of yellow) and fry them with light they can't handle, not because it's "too much" in terms of PUR (a coral can take vastly more correct spectrum light than most people running an aquarium here provide), its simply so much bad light.
From own experience, this is also why running high power white LEDs never will be anything but a disaster for especially acropora keepers, both in terms of growth and colors. If the spectrum profile is bad at 50% intensity, it not getting better the more intensity you have, rather the direct oposite. True, some corals can handle the yellow/red peaks, but most can not. Also, algae (most plants do) love yellow and red, and growing them will give you less nutrients available for coral.
Please correct me if/where I'm wrong. That's would be even better if someone can tell me how I can remove the yellow/orange/red and keep any usable light from the "white" chips (They peak at around 600nm, and are dominant at around 580nm.)
Can I please get an ETA for a decent chip, suited for corals? Pretty please? I'm sure your packing something for "Next generation LEDs, now with the colors we promised you 5 years ago!".
I've been looking into LED builds for a long time now, both DIY and premade fixtures.
What always gets me is the CRI of the white LEDs. How come there are no good 8-10 000 Kelvin 90 CRI chips?
From what I can gather from Cree datasheets, the high (90ish) CRI chips are yellow (Typically ~2600 Kelvin), and the high Kelvin (Cool white, typically 6500 Kelvin, for instance, the Philips are even worse) have a very low (65-70ish) CRI.
What we, as coral keepers want, is something as close to 6000 Kelvin 90+ CRI chips, lest we want our white chips to be electricity waste over our tanks.
Reason I'm saying this is simply because I do not want "most of my light" from the "white side" of the light to be yellow or red. A MH or T5 with similar Kelvin rating would have a much better color index (makeup of color) than any white LED chip currently available.
100 CRI basically has an even spread on the color spectrum (the sun), and all corals have adapted to this (based on what's left after traveling through x amounts of water, remember red, orange and yellow goes first). When we try to grow corals with totally wrong spectrum peaks, we simply lower their defenses (kill their symbiotic algae, who are not adapted to massive amounts of yellow) and fry them with light they can't handle, not because it's "too much" in terms of PUR (a coral can take vastly more correct spectrum light than most people running an aquarium here provide), its simply so much bad light.
From own experience, this is also why running high power white LEDs never will be anything but a disaster for especially acropora keepers, both in terms of growth and colors. If the spectrum profile is bad at 50% intensity, it not getting better the more intensity you have, rather the direct oposite. True, some corals can handle the yellow/red peaks, but most can not. Also, algae (most plants do) love yellow and red, and growing them will give you less nutrients available for coral.
Please correct me if/where I'm wrong. That's would be even better if someone can tell me how I can remove the yellow/orange/red and keep any usable light from the "white" chips (They peak at around 600nm, and are dominant at around 580nm.)
Can I please get an ETA for a decent chip, suited for corals? Pretty please? I'm sure your packing something for "Next generation LEDs, now with the colors we promised you 5 years ago!".
)
