Lighting schedule for UV LED bulbs

[lastduke]

I have a DIY type LED fixture. 24 blue, 24 white and 6 UV(purple) 3W each.
I ran blue 10 hours (70% strength), 4 hours white (50%) and 2 hours for purple (100%, not dimmable). Do I need to extend the uv lighting timer? I just don't know if it harms the SPS or not if too much UV on them.

[Vannpytt]

Do you have the violet 400nm+ ones? If so, they are not UV, they are violet and I run mine at the same schedule as the white ones, only more power.

About 600mA for 8,5h, while the cool white is at 4-450mA for the same duration.

I got about 10% Violet LEDs on my setup.

[lastduke]

How can I tell I have violet led or uv bulbs? It looks very purple.... No meter to measure the wave length. Maybe put my skin underneath to see if I get a sum burn ?:)

[tomgndallas]

haha if you do you got the wrong uv wavelength. my violet and purple are very close in color. my UV looks very purple and stands out from the rest indeed, so for me it is easy to pick them out

[lastduke]

do you mean the UV looks much purple than violet?

[mussel and hate]

If you can see the light, it isn't UV.

[amutti]

Most of the UV LEDs are 390-420nm with a peak between 402-410nm, UV is 10nm-400nm; so most UV LEDs are barley UV, but 'might' have some benefit. The pigment of many corals is suspected to be a defense against UV; so the theory goes that exposing them to some UV light, or near UV light, will increase pigment production. One problem is that the penetration power of UV light is very low and since LEDs are very inefficient at this wavelength already, you have to drive them harder to produce more penetration -- this will seriously shorten the life of the LED.

I'm currently running an experiment on my Fluval Edge Nano to see what noticeable effect UV-ish LEDs might have. Since the tank is so shallow I won't need to drive them very hard. My initial reaction is that it made little difference besides making the water seem a bit cloudy.

The reason for my experiment is that my coral growth has been wonderful under LED light (cool white/royal blue 50/50), but the coloration is only mild compared to the parent corals under T-5s. The one exception is my blasto which is much more colorful than its parent.

Time will tell. Good luck with your experiment.