Question about the 445/460nm spectrum

[OCNcheffy]

Quick question about lighting.. Can the blue 445/460nm spectrum bleach coral? Or is it mostly the whites such as 8000/12000k that will stress them out.

Just curious because my rics seem to be losing color and I've had my blues set to 100% the entire time. The whites are currently 60% which were at 80 when I noticed color loss. Could lowering the blue light help the coral? I'm using the current usa orbit marine system.

[jedimasterben]

Any light of too high intensity will bleach corals.

[OCNcheffy]

I've just assumed that since I have LPS and my lighting is very low wattage per LED (.25w) I needed to crank them. My other coral are growing like crazy. Frogspawn is splitting currently. I guess my question is, what would be more effective, lowering white or blue?

[jedimasterben]

Neither would be more effective unless one has significantly more output than the other, which you can verify with a PAR meter.

[evan38109]

I tend to use the balance between blue and white to get the look I want, then adjust them in proportion to get the intensity I want.

 

So, if I found that I liked the look of 50% white and 100% blue but had too much light, I'd drop 1% white and 2% blue every day or three until I got the intensity I wanted.

 

Might have to tweak the proportion a little as you go, since colors look different at different brightnesses...but you get the idea.