Advanced Aquarist LED/LEP coral growth study

This seems to confirm a source of frustration for me. What exactly are the ideal (okay, I know there is no ideal, but there is a baseline peak around which most folks will find an ideal) setting for our LED lights. A metal halide has one setting. T5s are also preset and we adjust around a mean. LEDs let us change spectra wildly and I think many of the problems we see are not because the light is bad, but because the information is insufficient.

If you have no, or few choices, then there isn't much information required. It is always better to have choices, but only when you can make informed choices.

Please, someone, start trying to translate this data into real world settings for LED fixtures. What does this suggest about the ideal range of ratios of cool white to warm white to blue to royal blue to red to whatever else?

 

It doesn't suggest anything more than the fact that the common/early design cool white, blue, and royal blue combo, is not a complete enough spectrum to get optimal results.

There isn't enough data to draw further conclusions about what is needed in terms of led colors needed to round out the spectrum.

IMO, violet, red and cyan are the best additions to the combo.

 

Here is an article that might help a little Servillius.

Feature Article: Light in the Reef Aquaria — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

 

I must have missed this article! Great link!

 

I am impressed that they did the statistical analysis correctly. I admit I didn't expect that from a study published on a blog. In that way, this article meets academic standards, in other ways, such as experimental design, they come up short. They kind of shot themselves in the foot from the beginning, as no matter what the results were they wouldn't have been able to draw any meaningful conclusions from them.

I also don't think anybody should 2nd guess our lighting choices in home aquaria based on this research. Hobbyists have different goals than a coral aquaculture company, and they extend beyond just growth, which was the only data this research took.

 

Thanks. That is a great article though I read it previously. What I wish someone would start doing is turning this research into tank usable empirical data. Does a radion grow corals faster at setting a or setting b. does a vega work better with the reds running at full or half power. That sort of thing. There is a lot of good science being done, but at the intersection between science and our reefs, there is just speculation and misinformation.

 

That kind of research would have really narrow implications, and wouldn't be a good use of resources, in my opinion. The value gained would diminish as soon as a new fixture came out. Instead, research on optimizing spectrum/intensity for growth and color, both of which are quantifiable, would give us lasting value and have broader implications. It would allow us to adjust existing fixtures and develop new lights to achieve parameters optimized for whatever your specific goals are. It would even contribute to our knowledge of coral ecology.

 

My thoughts exactly. This gives a good starting point for adjusting your spectrum and PAR.

 

Okay, what are the appropriate settings for my Vegas.

Look, I'm not disputing the value of doing the research to establish proper spectrum and intensity. I'm pointing out that in this hobby it's not user friendly until someone reduces the information to units and methods a hobbyist can use.

It's great knowing you need to keep organic nitrogen low. Until someone made a hobbyist test kit, the knowledge had limited value. We were not about to all do Kjeldhal titrations thrice weekly to keep a reef.

Previously we had lights that someone else did the research on for us. Now we have a crazy range of options. Someone has to communicate that into useful options.

 

The math in that article is wrong. Light intensity falls off exponentially not linear with depth. So all the conclusions regardings numbers are more or less worthless and some charts are incorrect.