Blue or Royal Blue?

I'm working on an LED Light unit to replace my PC, but I need some input on what kind of blue/actinic lights I should get. I have the choice between Blue (450nm) and Royal Blue (470nm). Is one better than the other? I have read that the blue lighting is for effects, and not necessarily there to benefit the tank. Is this true?

 

Yes and no... Those wavelengths are pretty close together so they will do mostly the same thing. They will cause certain fluorescent chromoproteins to emit light. This will happen mostly in green colors, however there are certain zooxanthellae on some montiporas that will pick up the blue wavelength and fluorescence with an orange emmitance.
Your perfect value to shoot for is 465nm but being on other side of that will still evict the same effect on your corals

 

Use a mix of both to get a wider blue spectrum, I would say they are pretty equal.

 

Thanks for the input. I'll probably do a 50/50, or would a 75/25 mix be better?

 

Don't know if you would be able to tell the difference, but go with the 470 as the 75% color should you go that way..

 

FWIW, almost every DIY LED build I've seen has used Royal Blues. I did come across a reason for using Royal Blue over Blues in the past, but almost as soon as I read it, I forgot it

I would use Royal's exclusively for the blues.

 

I too found a post at one point explaining why to go with Royal, but I also had seen one that explained only Blue. The post I'm basing most of my LED part list off of is here and they only used Blues, and no Royals.

I will most likely go with the Royals, but I am wondering if they will cause the coral to fluoresce more than the regular Blue? Although I do like looking at the corals under 'normal' looking lighting (white) I am interested in making them "pop" (fluoresce) more too.

 

Cree Royal blues

 

That thread is jam packed with great information. That and like 2 others over on RC helped me decide LED was the way to go for my tank. For an hour and 1/2 in the morning, and at night, the 20 Royals in my fixture run by themselves and I almost can't believe how beautifully bright fluorescent my corals look. They're almost like mini neon flashlights. I never saw that kind of bright color before. I wish I could run them solo all day. I'm sure you'll be really happy with them.

I'm sure you saw it on the thread you posted, but RapidLed has some pretty good deals with the Cree kits. (LED mounted, Meanwell drivers, optics, paste and powercord) All you'll need is a heatsink.

Be sure to post and let us know how the build goes

 

Sweet, thanks for the site, I've been looking at another place that the LED's are definitely more expensive. I just have to make a final decision on total # of LED's, thinking for my 15gal nano of going w/ 10 white and 10 royal blue. Is my thinking correct?