How to replicate natural sunlight look more with Reefbreeders leds....

[DavidinGA]

I'm still semi new to the hobby and have only used led's (Reefbreeders) and they give off a very blue look compared to natural light. While I understand corals need the blue spectrum the most are their other led setups that give a more natural look or can Reefbreeders be altered to give that look?

I like the way the blue makes the coral colors "pop" but don't really enjoy the overall windex look. I have played with my settings but to get a more natural look I have the whites cranked way to high and the blues so low the corals would probably suffer...

Attached is a photo at evening when my tank gets some natural light and you can see the astounding difference in colors made by sunlight vs led's. Not just the difference in color temp but the natural light is WAY brighter too.....

[buffalo123]

You would have to reduce to kelven to about 6500k; closer to natural than the blue light we tend to like. 6500k also tend to seem yellowish. You may try for 10000-12000k not as blue

[phillrodrigo]

Just keep channel 1 lower than channel 2

[phillrodrigo]

All the blues are controlled my channel 1. Just drop it until it looks good

[Timfish]

BuildMyLED.com has a custom build option that lets you build a LED fixture with just about any range of Kelvin and CRI ratings you may want. If you mess around with it you an get a fixture with a 98 CRI and 5700K - 6100K which is very close to natural sunlight.

Keep in mind the use of fluorescing and chromo proteins is to manipulate the light field is very complex and are often are employed to get rid of unwanted light. For example one of the chromoproteins which give some corals their purple coloration is reflecting blue and red spectrum and absorbing yellow and green spectrum which begs the question what is the coral doing with yellow and green light.

[ca1ore]

Keep in mind that the reason the Reefbreeders lights are setup to have an approximate 14K color temperature is that once 'natural light' has penetrated down through salt water it has color shifted. You certainly ought to be able to adjust the relative power of the two main channels to achieve a 10K look (thus replicating a shallow reef environment), but I'd not go any lower than that. To get to the 5K of natural sunlight would require either running the blue channel very low of swapping out some LEDs - in either case, not advised.

[Tenshoa]

Which model do you have and is it a full spectrum or just blue and white?

[DavidinGA]

Which model do you have and is it a full spectrum or just blue and white?

Photon32's "full" spectrum

[troylong45]

How has this been going ? I have the 48 full spectrum. And just started with it. And not liking the blue nes of it was thinking swaping out 1/4 or 1/3 of blues with more whites cus at 10% both channels far to blue

[Vtocean]

I also just started with the full spectrum 48 and found it very blue when set at levels I have read others were using on another site. I am currently running my blues at 10 to 15 percent less than the whites to get a little less blue hue. I also want to ensure that my livestock get all the proper light spectrum they need. With that said, at what point would I be starving anemones, zoos and lps/softies of the light they need? I understand they each have different spectral needs, but what would some recommend to keep all happy? I will go back to being a silent reader.....and wait for input of course. Thanks all......

[barjam]

I'm still semi new to the hobby and have only used led's (Reefbreeders) and they give off a very blue look compared to natural light. While I understand corals need the blue spectrum the most are their other led setups that give a more natural look or can Reefbreeders be altered to give that look?

I like the way the blue makes the coral colors "pop" but don't really enjoy the overall windex look. I have played with my settings but to get a more natural look I have the whites cranked way to high and the blues so low the corals would probably suffer...

Attached is a photo at evening when my tank gets some natural light and you can see the astounding difference in colors made by sunlight vs led's. Not just the difference in color temp but the natural light is WAY brighter too.....

Have you ever been to where corals live? The blue look is much closer to "natural". Red gets filtered out really fast and anything below say 10 feet or so is quite blue.

[troylong45]

Have you ever been to where corals live? The blue look is much closer to "natural". Red gets filtered out really fast and anything below say 10 feet or so is quite blue.

Iv been under water befor in the ocean and it id blue but not this blue or so it appears:deadhorse1:

[troylong45]

I also just started with the full spectrum 48 and found it very blue when set at levels I have read others were using on another site. I am currently running my blues at 10 to 15 percent less than the whites to get a little less blue hue. I also want to ensure that my livestock get all the proper light spectrum they need. With that said, at what point would I be starving anemones, zoos and lps/softies of the light they need? I understand they each have different spectral needs, but what would some recommend to keep all happy? I will go back to being a silent reader.....and wait for input of course. Thanks all......

What im doing now is I downloaded the intensity lighting schedule from reefbreeders.com faq section and opened in excel and edited the max white to 25 and blue to 20 in half hr increments. And ill see how I feel about this from first look I like it. And its nice cus it tells u each half hour what to set at to ramp it up to max.

[Hal]

To the OP:

Yes, you can. I have the same issue with my Reefbreeders Value fixtures; I run the white channel at 100% and the blue channel at minimum and it's still too blue for my tastes. After talking with Reefbreeders (excellent customer service, by the way), they suggested I swap out 4 of the red/blue lights on the white channel for 4500K white LED's.

You can order the LED's from Reefbreeders ($1.50 each plus $5 shipping).

I haven't made the swap yet, but the new LED's are sitting on my dresser waiting for me to find a chunk of time.

[DavidinGA]

To the OP:

Yes, you can. I have the same issue with my Reefbreeders Value fixtures; I run the white channel at 100% and the blue channel at minimum and it's still too blue for my tastes. After talking with Reefbreeders (excellent customer service, by the way), they suggested I swap out 4 of the red/blue lights on the white channel for 4500K white LED's.

You can order the LED's from Reefbreeders ($1.50 each plus $5 shipping).

I haven't made the swap yet, but the new LED's are sitting on my dresser waiting for me to find a chunk of time.


Old thread revisited...

Did you ever make the swap?