It helps but doesn't completely make-up. Take my 10g system for instance. I added some INSANE amount of PC light to it. It had a 130W PC fixture on it coming in well over 13 watts per gallon. So in my mind that meant
"I should be able to have an anemone, a clam and anything else I want!" So guess what I did... Yeah I slowly killed a clam and a SeaBae anemone because I had a LOT of light but not enough light just the same.
Let's see if I can give an example.... Let's say you're wanting to shoot a gun at a target 3 miles away. You have a
PC-Gun that you know is weak and will only shoot a bullet 1 mile. Unfortunately with-in that 1 mile you're still limited to WHAT you can shoot. You can shoot the easy stuff but the really "thick" hard to shoot things still need a stronger gun.
You think that maybe if you shoot 4
PC-guns side by side it will make ONE of the bullets go for 3 miles. Truth be known you are still only shooting 1 mile but you have 4 times as many bullets going that 1 mile. You could shoot 100
PC-guns side by side and you still wont get a single bullet to go the required 3 miles. But for that first mile you're really racking up the "Bullets Per Mile" (
Watts per Gallon).
So you try a new
T5-Gun. You've read where
T5-guns are much stronger than
PC-guns especially if you add the new "Reflective Coating" in the barrel
(individual reflectors). You know that the
T5-gun is amazingly strong and accurate until about 2.5 miles. Within the 2.5 miles you can "shoot" just about anything you want from the easy ones to the really REALLY hard ones. You just have to be specific about WHERE you shoot them
(coral placement).
Now you talk to someone and they say,
"If you get one of these MH-guns you can shoot 3 miles and MORE! Sometimes this may be TOO much gun for something that's easy and less than a mile away." At least you now KNOW you can shoot even those HARD to hit ones at your 3 mile range
(and further if you want to).
Lastly someone has this new
LED-gun. It's supposed to be able to shoot anything from close to REALLY far and be easily adjustable anywhere in between. The drawback to this one is it's brand new and not perfected. It's very expensive and somewhat of a GAMBLE this early in the "Hunt". Right now there is a lot of misinformation and "marketing smoke & mirrors" in the LED-gun market. There are LED-slingshots (1w LED) as well as currently available LED-rifles (3w LED). I'm sure in the near future we'll see LED Cruise Missles :LOL: (5w, 10w + LED) but for now if everything is made correctly you'll want at least 3w LED bullets in your gun.
If that doesn't confuse you then you're good to go
PC bulbs are very limited in what they can produce. I'm not saying they don't produce enough in the right spectrum for coral because they really DO for some coral! You've got to remember that at one time PC what the SHIZZLE and many of us kept some VERY nice coral under them. We just had to stay with easier to keep coral and be mindful of WHERE we placed them.
Once again when comparing ONE type of lighting to another you can't compare Watt to Watt. What matters is how INTENSE the light is per Watt. This determines how DEEP the light penetrates the water. Now that you have enough LIGHT ENERGY penetrating deep enough you also have to have the RIGHT type of energy getting there. This is PAR ( “Photosynthetically active radiation “ which is just saying how much light energy, in the correct spectrum, is there for photosynthesis to take place.). You need the RIGHT light going DEEP enough into your tank to get the desired results.
Whew! I think I just talked myself in circles there . . .
Regardless when you're talking LED you have to know what you're wanting and know what you're looking out. Unless it's a high output, high intensity unit you're buying little more than a really bright MOON LIGHT!!
Here is a very good read on
Lighting a Reef Tank
