LED 440nm or 450nm peaks?

Im looking at ordering a LED fixture and trying to decide the layout. Im a bit confused as to why most people get the majority of blues at 450nm and not 440nm. Looking at the Radium spectrum, it has a huge peak at 450nm so maybe this is why as everyone is trying to copy the Radium since it has such a great reputation for sps color. But looking at a chart in this article, it shows the absorption by zooxanthellae, it seems that the peak is at 440nm and not 450nm. Would it make sense to have more 440nm than 450nm blues because of this? I love the 20K look and Im guessing there wont be much difference in the look of using more 440 and less 450, what do you guys think?

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/10/aafeature

hey KC,

mate that article you posted is great reading. and i cant speak for everyone but for myself, my choice of leds in my diy fixture was driven by cost,effect and availablity.

i used the kits from aquastyleonline. because they were a cheaper alternative to buying a fully made fixture and the kits from them have been proven as easy to assemble/ modify aswell as getting growth and colour.

as far as im aware that particular online store doesnt offer a 440-445nm led. it offers royal blue 450nm-455nm or NUV 438nm.
i went with the 50/50 RB and 10kwhite. i will be supplementing my fixture with some NUV, pink and actinic leds shortly and it will be a great way to see the differenece.
sps looks and colour wise. i currently cant complain.

as for y i made my choice... to be honest i needed lights quickly and decided to go with the crowd.... baaaa baaa (scotty the sheep)
thanks for the article though i will be reading it thoroughly before ordering my supplementry leds.

It’s interesting stuff the graph on the colours.

I used to use metal halide after mercury vapour that I think is halogen isn’t it?

Hated the cooking of the tank from those lights,back then a chiller was worth millions of dollars,lol,well it seemed like it.

So when the Phillips 03 T8 tube came to pass as the first true actinic tube, we all jumped on them.

The reason they were to be the god send was that the colour blue penetrates the water further then any other colour and the theory was that this will give corals more intense lighting deeper in the water, it didn’t make much difference and then the tri phosphor tubes came out with the three powder coatings in the tube and the powder to glow blue was well represented for the depth reason.

So what went from there was a progression of experimentation of tubes?

I herd about the English made triton tube as the best blend of colours available at that time.

Then I thought maybe the 03 should be more intense, so back then any one could by tanning light tubes, maybe they still can I don’t know, so Philips had a 08 high out put blue tanning tube that came in a four footer as well.

So two tritons and two 08s were put together over my 4 foot tank, the result was the corals grew onto the glass of my tank they grew so fast and retained their original colours but mote intense.

I had no idea as to what caulerpa could do used the in right way as I use now, so back then I was using phosphate sponge, activated carbon, home made venturi skimmers, dosing, plankton and powder coral foods, in tank reverse flow under gravel pre filter at the pumps and external trickle filter with several pre filters, I hadn’t thought of settling pre filters at that stage.

All that worked well until summer, I didn’t do corals again for nearly 20 years.

Personally I have seen nothing as good as the tritons for coral growth to 18 inches of water, they are a very expensive tube I hear these days but back then they couldn’t give them away.

The graph on the cardboard wrapping on the tritons was up one side of the colour range remaining flat and straight down the other side of the graph.

The colours were all roughly the same intensity??

From those days,i believe the more colours in lighting the better.