Lighting question - running all blues

[BryanDuggan]

During a trip to Fengs shop he told me that algae prefers the red end of the spectrum so as much as possible he only runs the blue lights. This appeals to me for two reasons, I've been battling algae, and I like that some of my corals fluoresce. But am I making a mistake running all blues? I've been running all blues for probably two months and other than losing my favia colony, everything else looks great.

ps - I have a LED system.

 

[mnat]

WWC on their display runs their halides for a couple of hours and then runs the acinitcs the rest of the time (unless they changed that) so there is some backing to that. However, they did it more because they were keeping a lot of LPS in there which benefits from lower amounts of light. For algae control, I am not so sure, I think the fact that his system is gigantic and he does his constant water changes is probably a better reason why he does not have algae.

 

[dppitone]

The sun is around 5,500 to 6,000 on the kelvin side, and 100 on the color rendering side, so as your average moves away from those values, there will be less benefits that are derived from the sun type light. The blues are pretty far away on both scales. If you have stuff needing true sun values than they should be considered.

It's true that hydroponic growing uses some reds mixed with the middle kelvin light.

 

[JRWOHLER]

I am interested in this topic as well, obviously if you had deep water fish/corals then all blues would make sense as that is the wavelength that makes it deeper. I have in the past experienced better growth while running more daylight bulbs and less blue purple range. Would an entire diet of blues eventually cause problems? Could you adapt your tank with all deepwater fish/corals to live under blues? Is there an amount of time with daylight bulbs that is good for the corals but short enough to enhibit algae growth?
If anyone has anything to read on this I would love to see it.

 

[Classklown90]

Correct me if im wrong but I dont believe there are any or at least many, "deepwater" corals. That is all name hype. Corals grow in the shallows so they can get the most light. Anything that grows deep is most likely completely or partially non photosynthetic

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk

 

[BryanDuggan]

Clearly I don't know the answer, since I posed the question, and am a realities newbie, but I had a thought....

Blue is a higher energy wavelength (more intense) than the red end of the spectrum, so does spectrum matter as much as intensity? A logical extension of that logic would be to try using long, medium, or short wave UV light. I wonder if anyone has tried that.

 

[dppitone]

I think Duncans are deeper water relatively. But this entire topic is beyond my level of knowledge. I've just picked up the basic from reading experts like Bob Fenner. I run Iwasaki 6500s on MH for growth and add blue florescent as needed - and now am transitioning to LEDs in the same config. But if you really like the blue look - I know many others whom have great success in leaning way over to blue - eg. Falconut was running double 20k 250w MHs plus two VHO actinics and had phenomenal growth. So who knows.