Does anyone know of any research into UV LED's and their benefits?

[cvcdrk]

Are they at all beneficial? There's a lot of UV in natural sunlight. I don't know if anything on a reef utilizes that end of the spectrum, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Most LEDs come with just whites and blues...some allow you to add in some cyan or reds...and a couple let you add in UV LEDs.....but I'm wondering if there's been any research done on this.

 

[bjohanson1234]

I don't have any research, but I believe that they are added to make the colors pop more. I don't think that they have any benefit to the corals at all. I also don't think that they are detrimental either.

 

[cvcdrk]

I've read as much as I could on the subject but can never find any research on it.

It seems like the original thought was that shallow-water corals produce better colors as a defense against UV light, but this coating was proven to be clear in color.

It seems that the majority of people say that any benefit from UV lights is actually just a benefit from having ANY lights in the sub-420nm range, which is commonly ignored in LED fixtures.

I don't really know what to believe/trust. I wish there was some better research out there on stuff like this.