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LED colors & wavelengths

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I'm thinking about going full LED lighting for a biocube and have seen how there are a lot of LED wavelengths & colors to choose from. Has anyone tried a variety of wavelengths, especially the newer UV & Magenta bulbs, to see how they look and if the corals color up much more? I'm primarily considering zoas/ palys, so lighting requirements are easy to meet, but I'm wondering what the differnet lighting combos would do.
I'm referring to: 453nm, 455mn, Ultraviolet, Magenta, 8K & 12K which I saw on the Ecoxotic stunners. Maybe adding 1 UV & 1 Magenta would help as a suppliment, although I'm guessing a 2 blue/ 1 white bulb combo might overpower the UV & Magenta colors?
 
The new Ecoxotic ones were only announced like 2 and a half weeks ago. I don't think that is long enough to tell much :)

http://reefbuilders.com/2011/06/10/ecoxotic-stunner-led-lights/
* Magenta
* Magenta/12K White
* 445nm Blue
* 12K White/453nm Blue
* 12K White/453nm Blue
* Magenta/453nm Blue
Click to expand...
 
Don't have data sheets in front of me, but the primary "pop" that corals get is from fluorescence, and that occurs with the blue & violet part of the spectrum. UV will certainly add a bit, magneta however might not do as much, depends what colors are mixed in, and if anything you'll probably get a different look simply because you have a different spectrum of light reflecting (not produced by the coral) off them. Don't have a datasheet for what "magenta" is though.

White will usually overpower everything though, blues aren't terribly powerful by themselves, royal blues are quite a bit and will lighten things up a bit. IIRC UV is very low output, so you might not see much from that unless its the only thing on.
 
Yes I know they've only been out shortly, I was thinking about adding one or more of them, but was curious if anyone had tried some of those colors. It's kind of intriguing to think what would only a UV and say magenta look like together when the primary lights are off.
 
Regarding Magenta:
I am definitely intrigued by the magenta. Which is not a single wavelength, but red + blue.
It fills in the much needed red section, without looking horribly red.
And it actually decreases green in a way, which can be a plus. (It is the complement)
On the other hand, too much looks really strange, and likely increases algae growth.

Regarding UV:
I noticed minor improvements in fluorescence over standard royal blue.
But not enough to be worth the hassles in my opinion.
UV is a bit dangerous, since you can stare at it without knowing, plus, you may
inadvertently block it depending on splash guard composition.
And it is usually pretty expensive for the mW produced.

I have tried royal blue, UV, and magenta when I was playing around with colors on my LED build.
Hard to photo, but post 6 here might give you some idea.
http://www.bareefers.org/home/node/11490


IMPORTANT: While adding magenta/whatever as a supplement sounds great,
it is not so easy in practice, due to it being hard to get even coverage.
You get color banding and other wacky colored disco ball like effects if you are not careful.
 
[youtube]lhy9Wl22Gs8[/youtube]

Some people pay for color banding :)
 
seminolecpa said:
[youtube]u1N6QfuIh0g[/youtube]

Some people make burgers out of poop too, doesn't mean i like the idea. :)
Click to expand...

If you think more poop burgers are sold then those lighting systems you are vastly over estimating the amount of poop burgers on the market :lol:
 
Sewer burger might be more appropriate than you think.
The allowed percentage of feces in ground beef has always been a bit disturbing.
Then there were all the cuts to FDA budget, so a lot less testing and inspections.
But what makes it much worse is now a larger percentage is imported,
with almost no oversight here, and zero to none in the home country.

Now you might think this is getting way off topic - but no! :)

Now that UV LEDs are far more efficient, they are starting to use them for disinfection and food treatment.
Not only are they efficient, but they can tune the wavelength to hit the peak DNA absorption point.
As usual though, there are still a lot of issues to solve before it goes mainstream.
 
rygh said:
Now that UV LEDs are far more efficient, they are starting to use them for disinfection and food treatment.
Not only are they efficient, but they can tune the wavelength to hit the peak DNA absorption point.
As usual though, there are still a lot of issues to solve before it goes mainstream.
Click to expand...
UV LEDs are horribly inefficient and horribly expensive for sterilization wavelengths.
 
Gomer said:
rygh said:
Now that UV LEDs are far more efficient, they are starting to use them for disinfection and food treatment.
Not only are they efficient, but they can tune the wavelength to hit the peak DNA absorption point.
As usual though, there are still a lot of issues to solve before it goes mainstream.
Click to expand...
UV LEDs are horribly inefficient and horribly expensive for sterilization wavelengths.
Click to expand...

Yes, I know what you are saying. Low pressure mercury is like 20%, where deep UV max at 5% or so in the labs,
and more like 2% in production.
Life of lpHg is short though, so cost is hard to say.

But poking around more, it seems they are not using deep UV, but actually around 365 nm,
and still getting the same effect.
I cannot find data on those, but I do know that the slightly higher Cree near-UV is up in the 32% range now.
I could not find the old article, but found one on water, similar.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17978842
 
Cree's UV LED is useless (way too long wvelength)
365 nm LEDs are still pretty inefficient and damn expensive for their output
http://www.roithner-laser.com/pricelist.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_germicidal_irradiation
Germicidal wavelengths are rediculously expensive.

While shorter wavelengths may work, the cross section is way lower meaning a lot more flux is needed. 254 nm murcury light is dirt cheap.
 
Those prices seem to be for laser diodes.
You can get a Nichia NC4U133 for about $8.50.
That one is about 8W, and about 12% efficiency.
And I think the bulb life difference is something like 50,000 to 8,000 hours. (LED to Hg.)

No idea on the difference in effectiveness.
But yes, does seem like 50% increase in wavelength might matter.
 
Scroll down for LED prices and flux.

The NC4U133 is a 365nm LED. You are missing the part about absorption cross section and flux.

I'm not saying LEDs can't work with sterilization, just that it is currently a cost ineffective option, especially when you use appropriate wavelengths for efficient sterilization. Would you do a tank water change with an eye dropper?
 
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