10k growth, 14k colour, is it cheating?

[kwirky]

I basically put the findings from two different research papers on advanced aquarist together. The one paper had results that showed colour temperature played little role in SPS growth and instead PAR made a difference. The other paper showed that coral grown under 10k lights don't "lack" any colour and colour shows instantly when put under 20k bulbs. They did speculate that there's a possibility for certain colour proteins to only show up under certain colour temperatures or other variables but they said research has to be done to prove that.

There's a LOT of exciting research happening lately in coral colour
here are the two articles:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/3/aafeature1
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002...searchterm=PAR

Originally Posted by Delphinus

It's not just Kelvin temperature though is it? Well, partially I suppose. But going from 14k 150W to 10K 250W is surely going to have a pretty significant increase in PAR, you'd think?

the difference in ppfd according to sanjay's site is as follows (i substituted the icecap ballast for my galaxy and the M81 for the coralife HQI). almost 3x the PAR and I think that's why the monti frag bleached after coming from a medium light T5 system.