@zachts
Yes, they are useful - but only for our eyes. I never said that red light is not needed for proper color renderition - and I didnt say also that we dont use it..
I rather said, that its not needed to build proper light spectrum WITHOUT white leds - using only that kind of wavelenghts which can help in corals pigment intensify - without that ones, which are bright for our eyes(550-570nm) and which are a to "suppress" color vision in higher contrast and better fluorescence.
I think that we are still misunderstanded - we are also using 630-640nm leds for CRI increase - but only for that(and there is not too many red leds which will be adjusted by customer to 20% - because light is "too pink" ot "too warm"..
They are intended to give only the color pigments which are not fluorescent.
Do you think that this spectrum is missing something important for corals pigmentation?
It looks "white"(for human eyes) and offer perfect "contrast" and color renderition. Without white leds.
Last photo - lamp with 2x75W SMT Matrix(working on 50%).
About last suggestion - you can believe or not, but its not so easy as you think.
If ANY company from aquatic industry will want to start their own LED chip production - probably it will be cheap, weak quality product from Chrl - without confirmed parameters and lifetime=?
Most important problem for multichip layers(one chip) is heat dissipation. In weak heat dissipation (it is not possible when LEDs are arranged one beside the other) decreases its efficiency and overheating occur - which leads to a reduced service life.
I'll just add - that the aquarium industry market is too small for producers as Cree or Philips to have made dedicated systems(led chips) - the cost of such a project can be counted in hundreds of thousands of dollars (research, production and start producing certain minimum amount of chips) ..
No one will decide to this when every six months on the market there are more and more newer models of LEDs - with greater efficiency and better performance ..