Uv light yae or nae?

As all these fancy technology light fixtures keep coming out once in a while I would hear "this light is better because it has the UV spectrum seperated for individual control" etcetc...
Leading me to believe that UV light is good thing for corals etc...

So...if that is true I am also hearing that people crank their blues and royal blues on these LED fixtures....which I have done and looks great...

I am wondering if the blues are at 65% for example what percentage should my UV spectrum be at if 65 is highest for blues...

Can anyone shed some light (punny) on the UV spectrum and its importance or wives tales etc? Thanks kindly, Tim
 
I made a D.I.Y. fixture using 420nm, 450nm, 470nm, and 10000k 3Watt Leds. Using the info in that article, I wrote firmware for an Arduino microcontroller to create a sunlight cycle.

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If you are talking true UV, less than 400nm, I would set them to about 30% of the intensity of the 450nm wavelength (Royal Blue).

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Big Mac why?

Big Mac why?

HI Big Mac thanks for your answer of 30% of Royal Blue...
Sounds like a reasonable number and is about what I have them at now.

Why do you suggest that may I ask your logic?


Thanks kindly,

Tim
 
Almost every color of zoox starts to excite around 350nm, or lower. Below 400 is true UV - the 410, 420 garbage is marketing by LED companies, but still violet. You will get better color out of a light with true UV for lots of corals - some don't matter at all.

There is two things that UV does. First, certain corals will take in the lower nm waves, use some of the energy and then spit it back out in with a higher frequency (lower energy) - this can make colors that we can see. Second, certain corals will develop pigments to shield themselves from excess UV - this is also colorful and will leave when no UV is around.

UV only penetrates a few meters deep in the ocean. Does anybody here have a tank that is more than a few meters deep?

There is a Dana Riddle study about zoox excitation that you can search for that has graphs and stuff.
 
I posted a link, but for some reason it was removed. There is an advanced aquariast article from 2012 that has a plot of light spectrum on a coral reef. The plot shows wavelength versus intensity. UV is about 30% of the highest intensity, which happens to be 450nm or Royal Blue. Do a google search on "Spectrum of light on reef". It should be the first link.

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The 410nm, 420nm is not garbage. Its in the spectrum of normal sunlight.

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410 and 420nm also happen to be in the spectrum of peak absorption for zooxanthellae.

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