Blue LED vs White LED Moonlight

Fenix · #1 03-08-2009, 08:33 PM

i payed a visit to petland and it turns out Marina makes these LED. you can choose from red, blue, white and green they sell for $18 cdn. You can but multiple ones and hook them up with a hub.

Naked Wookie · #2 03-08-2009, 08:40 PM

if your wanting to actually light a tank using LEDs seems the trend is to use a 50/50 split of cree XRE royal blue and white to create a 14k look.
http://www.ledsupply.com/ for those that are DIY minded they are quite powerful especially when coupled with a focusing lense they produce very very high PAR numbers.
tighter the beam the higher the comparison to MHs.
if you want to look at building your own nano-reef.com in the lighting section has a ton of articles and threads about builds and how to do it. so far alot of success for total tank lighting.
also you get the shimmer effect of MHs some say even more so then a MH due to LEDs shimmering already.

levi1803 · #3 03-08-2009, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fenix

i payed a visit to petland and it turns out Marina makes these LED. you can choose from red, blue, white and green they sell for $18 cdn. You can but multiple ones and hook them up with a hub.

They carry the same ones at Wal Mart too, can't remember the price off hand, but would assume cheaper than Petland sells them for.

zazzoo · #4 03-08-2009, 09:46 PM

i use white leds at night on a timer .... as soon as the atincs go out the whites led come on

Fenix · #5 03-08-2009, 10:09 PM

oh damn, but its good to know i may go get a blue one as well. thanks

mike31154 · #6 03-09-2009, 04:27 AM

To me, actual moonlight does not look very blue.... once in a blue moon? I think the reason many people prefer blue LEDs as after hours lighting is because many corals fluoresce under that colour more than under a whiter light. I'd say if you're looking to replicate the real world, white is more appropriate.

Chris_A · #7 03-09-2009, 06:27 AM

The blue light is solely for us. The human eye doesn't percieve the blue spectrum as well as some other's and it there by looks "dim" to us. On the other hand, I've read that fish percieve blue VERY well... a blue moon LED *could* be bright to them. I've been thinking of a moonlight for a little while now, it'll be white or red.

Chris

Naked Wookie · #8 03-09-2009, 01:56 PM

I personally wouldn't mess with red as its not a natural colour spectrum for corals.
been having to decide on a MH bulb and what Kelvin to us and this study is rather interesting.
turns out enough red light and you bleach certain coral which is natural when you think about how well red light doesn't penetrates water vs blue.
definitely needs some further studies to find out if it applies to softies and shallow water corals as well.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/12/aafeature1

mike31154 · #9 03-09-2009, 03:11 PM

What we need is for one of our scuba enthusiasts to go for a night dive under a full moon with some light measuring instrumentation......uh, par meter, some sort of spectrometer? Then use the same instruments in a tank at night under different colour LEDs.

Chris_A · #10 03-09-2009, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Naked Wookie

I personally wouldn't mess with red as its not a natural colour spectrum for corals.
been having to decide on a MH bulb and what Kelvin to us and this study is rather interesting.
turns out enough red light and you bleach certain coral which is natural when you think about how well red light doesn't penetrates water vs blue.
definitely needs some further studies to find out if it applies to softies and shallow water corals as well.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/12/aafeature1

Interesting article and a good argument against red as a moon light. Thanks!