Closest to NSL

[thirty5]

What is the best light that comes the closest to Natural Sun Light. I was told that 6500K is the closest. What is your take, do not consider what the coral will look like, i want to try and get something for a small tank to just play around.

 

[meschaefer]

My understanding is the 65K is the closest color to natural light, now is it providing everything that the coral needs... thats another (debatable) question.

 

[Killerdrgn]

Sunlight is really a spread of spectrums. 6,500K is the best spectrum of light matching ground level lighting, its about halfway/average. However in the water, most of the lower level spectrums are filtered out and water critters are more responsive(if that would be the proper term) to the higher spectrums like 10,000k and above.

 

[lfsmarineguy]

I'm sure Sanjay has a better answer than any of us but it's my understanding that 6500k represents the sun at it's highest point of the day at the waters surface. The higher the spectrum the deeper down it represents as the lower spectrums are filtered out as they cannot penetrate as deeply. A mix of spectrums is always optimal over one or the other.