-Amy-

I'm curious, because I haven't really been into the whole PAR thing, mostly because from what I read about it, it only takes into account a speicific wavelength of light for corals.  Seems to me, that corals...like plants, use all different kinds of available radiation, not just a specific wavelength from #x to #z.  Also, PAR just seems to be the new "flavor of the month" in determining what bulbs are better than others, and in a year or so there will be a better quantitave way in determining a spectral analysis.  Almost seems like PAR was invented so the masses who can't read the spectral plots have some concrete number to compare bulbs with, whether they are using these numbers correctly is a big "?". 

I see now that Sanjay is using PPFD values, not sure what they are exactly...feel free to enlighten me.   

Many people have had success with some lights that have very low numbers.  I myself had XM15k's and loved them for about 6months until they became "blah".  So obviously, lighting isn't the only variable that helps corals color up and grow well (water quality is obviously the biggest factor). 

So with all of that said, I'm just curious as to what people think about this stuff. 

The data on the new 175w Iwasaki Aqua 2 looks HOT.  I'm very interested since I run 175's and like the blue look since I'm more concerned about colors than growth. 

I don't claim to be any expert on this stuff, just trying to correlate this to some of my background in chemistry/physics/biology that I have learned in college. 

-Amy-