Lighting for the self-delusional

[Subrosa]

If you're one of those orchid growers who insist upon calling your Cattleya and Vanda "blue", have I got a light for you! First pic is a "blue" Vanda hybrid under my 120W LED Panel under full intensity. Second is is with a flash. Third is with the white channel dialed down to about 75% output:

[Joseia]

The third one looks like the light of an alien sun, freaky.

[charlesf6]

You never mentioned which one the little lady bug preferred.

[Dollythehun]

Ouch, hurts my eyes!

[Subrosa]

Originally Posted by charlesf6

You never mentioned which one the little lady bug preferred.

I asked, but got no reply. Probably for the best I suppose........

---------- Post added at 05:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:20 AM ----------

The light is a low cost 120W Chinese made Taotronics panel intended for reef aquaria. It has two separate channels, each with its own potentiometer. One channel is approximately 10,000K full spectrum white lighting and the second is blue actinic, blue light right around the blue peak for photosynthesis. The idea for a reef is to use two timers to provide a dawn period of just blue lighting, a period of full daytime lighting, followed by a dusk of just blue. The blue light causes colors in many fish to pop better, and many corals are a completely different color under just the blues. It's surprising when you are looking at a fluorescent orange coral that suddenly turn bright green when the whites come on! I normally keep both channels at 100% for growing purposes, but just got curious.