[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by zachts

TropTrea, I recal your experience with "pink" violets from another thread long ago and I thing that you just go some lousy LEDs. I've used Violets now from Rapid LED, Steve's LED, Aquastyle Online, and "the site that can no longer be mentioned here on RC" from whence mccory's LEDs came. all of them produce a definate purple blue light somewhere in between a royal blue and a black light. if anything thier color gets lost when mixed in small amounts with a lot of royal blue. That's why I believe you need a lot of them, especially since when you look at radiometric output they are only 1/2 or 1/3 as powerfull as a royal blue. Yet when you look at the spectrum of my favorit VHO t12 actinic it's spectrum has about 2/3 violet at 420nm and 1/3 royal blue around 550nm. so it's about 2-3 violets to every royal blue for a similar effect!

FYI, mccory don't try to post the name of the site you sourced your LEDs from, it will get you in trouble. nothing wrong with the products from them, they just abused thier posting privelages and got banned from reef central as I understand it.

May I ask what thpe of radiometric measurement you made on these violet LED's/ In most instruments there is a big fall off in instrument sensativity when you get down below 440nm with some not even capable of reading anything under 380nm. It is also an interesting with the visual effects of this as light under 460 nm looses it ability to be seen by the human blue cones but is visable by the eyes violet rods normaly used for night vission. The sensativity on an individuals rods to the various cones does varry considerably from one person to another. To me even with just Royal Blues I see a distinct amount of pink in the white sand bed compared to a 460 nm Blue LED. My son sees that same difference while mu wife and daughter can not see the difference between a 454nm rb and a 460 nm blue. On the other hand they can see the difference between a 630 and a 660nm red which I cannot see.

This is why lighting can be so much of a personal preference. Add to that the personal taste where Johnny like a tank with photographic blanced neutral color, Jack like a tank with color that like he is diving in water 5 meters deep and Charlie like a tank where it looks like he is diving 100 meter deep. Therefore no one lighting combination can make everyone happy.