In LED fixtures, "UV LEDs" aren't actually UV, and if they are , they're just in the UV zone. I am using UV LEDs in my PhD work, so I can tell you with confidence that a "UV LED" and a real UV LED are two VERY different beasts. Most of the LEDs used in fixtures aren't at a wavelength to be considered harmful. Also, an unshielded halide bulb puts out MUCH more UV than a few little LEDs. But with enough low power true UV LEDs,you can cause yourself some trouble.

But to answer your question, there is no point in putting a shielding lens on a true UV LED if you are trying to use it as such. LEDs put out fairly narrow spectra, so blocking the UV with a lens really is just blocking all the light.

What we are actually wanting out of all of this is the deep violet which gives a blacklight effect. Going deeper into the UV wavelength actually does not yield more fluorescence, so there really is no point.

Well thanks. Very informative. What are you running for lights on your tank? Sorry too lazy to search your posts. And if you dont mind, what are are your percentages of intensity?

I am still running MH on my main tank (250W MH + 4xT5, 100% intensity :razz:) but I am currently wrapping up an LED conversion for my biocube 14 (Full spectrum, 24 LEDs, Cree XT-E's) as an experiment. I'm going to play with the LEDs in the little tank until I figure out what works best and what I like. Once I've got the full spectrum thing figured out I'll probably build an LED fixture for my main tank. I do love my MH though.

At work I am currently building a UV LED reactor as a side project (using the first TRUE high power UV LEDs in the world... sounds kinda weird when I say it out loud, but it's true:redface:). For my main research, I use T5s and MHs as light sources to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using only light and semiconductor nanoparticles... soooooo, I kinda spend a lot of time talking about light, UV, LEDs/semiconductor, MH and T5s everyday :razz: Kinda nice to be able to talk about it in a non-work context.:biggrin:

My concern is I don't get the color ratio right for my tank or not enough intensity that I will kill off my corals or royally fubar my tank. I love how Greg's build turned out for his 8 footer but I cannot afford modular LEDs regretfully


Sent from my porcelain aquarium

I have to admit, while I do think my build is a hair on the blue side, I love the colour it puts out with the NW, RB, TV and OCW. That's 6 colours. I will definitely be taking out a couple of the RB's and perhaps add more white in another spectrum than the NW. But having them all on differing channels has allowed me to see what effect they all have at least to my eye. I do have to raise it and see if maybe I can turn up the whites a bit without cooking anything.

+1 to the AI sols, I have 2 modules on my 90 gallon and all my corals have never looked better, running them at 60% on all 3 colors white, blue & royal blue.

I wouldn't be too concerned with that. The more likely scenario would be accidentally starting the LEDs off at too high of an intensity and frying them (provided you have enough LEDs to start with). The colour mix is something that you can play with over time. If you drill and tap your heatsink you can easily swap LEDs around at your pleasure. The modular LEDs are really nice, but not necessary. And as long as you have enough of the base colours (RB/NW) which can drive photosynthesis, you're good.

That's an interesting article on UV! So in other words. 1. the uv shields on halide bulbs only block out some UV and by some I mean hardly any. 2. UV is harmful to corals.

I am no expert and have only ever had LED lights I took this picture today of my tank i have had this setup for 5 months and the lights are only at 60% intensity so far I started at 20% and gone up from there. This was a kit from RapidLed and a friend built for me there are 6 blue, 4 white, 1 red and one moonlight.

Sorry my IPhone 4 doesn't do justice but with the exception of one coral all my coral are thriving under this set up with full bloom and great colour. Almost all came from a MH tank and within days were doing great and are all growing at a fast rate. I wouldn't go with any other lighting setup because I am very impressed with how well the coral are thriving under the LED lighting.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps5ba1716f.jpg

I am running 3 Sols with some DIYs. The Ebay fixtures were too loud for my liking even though my corals still grew. I've been on LEDs now for a year and 8 months and corals are still growing. Over the last year I've removed at least 15 colonies of sps (most had to be broken in order to fit in a 5 gal pail). So in a nutshell, yes, LEDs can grow sps just fine and the colours are still beautiful.