LED lighting UV is a must

Okay ladies and gentlemen here we go. I'm going to make a statement about LED lighting and the people who sell LED lighting are not going to like this. I spoke to a gentleman last night for about 4 hours on the subject of LED lighting. This gentleman manufacturers LED so he knows his stuff he tells me that if you don't have UV mixed in with your LEDs your corals will turn brown within 3 to 4 weeks that's because of the algae inside of the corals are not producing their sunscreen which the colors come from. If you going to buy a system of LEDs you must make sure that it has UV lighting built into it. Okay this is all hearsay this was told to me by what I consider an expert it's not a bad thing but it's something you need to look into because some of these systems are very expensive. So when any of you guys go to LEDs please make sure the manufacturer has built-in UV and everything should be fine. This is just my opinion.Phil 8)

 

I personally do not believe UV lights are required, but they may help. With that said, I have seen too many "beautiful" AI Sol Blue tanks which contain no UV lights at all after 1 year + of growth / coloring up.

In metal halide systems, most of the UV light is blocked by the shield anyways.
Disclaimer: I do not contain an LED system, therefore, no bias towards UV or not.

 

well that is interesting, I have had my AI SOL since August of 2011 and dont have any browning issues. I do think uv is a great add, but I dont think its 100% necessary.

 

Dont mean to diss your expert but LED have been out for a couple years and until just recently have people started adding UV's to the mix. So there are people with alot of actualy time on tank LED's that will say otherwise.

LED expert maybe, biologist..... eh?

 

This is correct and incorrect. The corals will not go brown, however it is completely true to say colors are not as bright and vibrant as when corals are under UV. And to clarify, this is UV closer te the violet range (405-420nm).
I'm happy to see that the UV spectrum that I first started promoting 2 years ago is starting to become popular

 

Yeah.. been running mine since inception of my tank and have watched TON of corals go from brown to awesome colors though...

True violet (not UV) is really making some waves right now. I wouldn't say "necessary" but it does seem to have some positive results.

 

Well this will be a controversial thread lol. I have seen to many tanks that have awesome colring and growth to wonder where your source got his test results from. I don't honestly think all these different manufactures would sell all these different fixtures without UV lighting to just have corals brown out.
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The browning may have more to do with white LED and their spectra and the percentage of light they contribute. It is known that the lower the K value the less color and the greater the growth. So it may have something to do with that.

 

I think you should refer to a new expert. Let me guess, this LED manufacturer builds an LED light with violet (405-420nm) LEDs. Sounds like we have been down this road again. Also you need to tell him that those LEDs are not UV but simply violet. You too will then will come off sounding like an expert! Also you might want to get him to explain how these so call brown-outs did not happen to all tanks running AI Sols and Nanos, Maxspect G2, and Acan Lighting systems. None of these were running his so called UV and some have achieved pretty good colors. If his theory hold water, no one should be able to achieve colored corals under the above systems. Maybe not MH or T5 colors but certainly not brown!

 

I'm running UV, a filter, the DT doesn't 'see' it.

My LED maker, a Chinese TaoTronics says the 25 x blue are 460-470, and the 30 x white are 12000-14000 K. I running 2 of them.

Only had them about 4 days, things are great so far.

INteresting thread though.