New Marineland lighting at Drsfostersmith

[PsyKick]

Hi there, just thought I would chip in my 2 cents,
These LED's from Marineland produce light in the 5500 Kelvin range, not ideal for planted tanks.
I was also curious about these fixtures, so I emailed Marineland asking about them, and they responded with the color temp and a recommendation to not use it on a planted tank.

 

[DoctaQ]

color temp isnt really that important, its mostly for looks, a spectral breakdown would be more useful but i think its moreso the issue of intensity here.

 

[PsyKick]

I may be missing something here, but isn't color temp extremely important? My understanding is that the farther from 6500K you get in either direction, the less use the plant gets out of it. Is this different for LEDs?

 

[DoctaQ]

the plants use specific wavelengths of light, not K
it happens that certian wavelengths of light tend to be higher in certian K ratings for most bulbs.
ive used a 5.5k bulb to grow riccia before and also a 12k bulb that was able to keep dwarf sags under an inch tall (although it might be the species)
i would almost be inclined to say that warm white cree xr-e might grow plants better than a cool white (3k vs 6.7k)

 

[Squawkbert]

Kelvin ratings are also just a composite value for a bulb and say little about the spectral output. This is why you can have 10-14K bulbs that are either fairly white or very blue looking...