Vital Wave Violet and Cyan are worthy color-boosting LED spotlights

The Vital Wave LED spotlights from EcoLamps include three different colors, two of which really hit the sweet spot for highlighting the colors of aquarium corals. Manufacturers of LED spotlights have been experimenting with LEDs across the spectrum, often times the assortment of the diodes are kind of haphazardly combined to recreate a rainbow of colors, but that doesn’t usually translate well to really making corals pop. We tested the three different styles of VitalWave LED spotlights and found two of them to really resonate with our ideal for exciting fluorescent pigments of colorful corals.

The 7 watt Vital Wave LED spotlights are of the smaller PAR30 format for screw-in lights are they are fairly comparable in size and power to previous lights tested. As you can see in the image above, the two VitalWave spots on the left are not that different from the LeDio 7 and QuadSpec V2, it even seems to be using the same driver as the LeDio LED spotlight.

Close up of the LEDs used in the VitalWave Sun LED spotlight showing its assortment of colors.

The VitalWave Sun is a broad spectrum LED light, the likes of which we have seen in countless other LED lights of this sort with an assortment of colors to recreate a natural, broad spectrum white light. There’s a little white, a little warm white, green, blue, cyan and deep blue. The resulting light of the VitalWave Sun is a bright and probably most nutritious light that should be great for growth in some smaller tanks, but modern reefers will probably not want to use this light on its own.

The Vital Wave Sun as shone on a range of colors of Acanthastrea lordhowensis

The Vital Wave Violet LED light and its color-boosting spectrum of blue to deep blue LEDs

Our favorite of the trio of Vital Wave LED spotlights is the Violet version. The Vital Wave Violet has 3 x 400nm UV, 3 x 420nm blue violet LEDs and one 450nm to balance it all out. As far as color-popping LEDs go, we’re not sure you could get any more color saturation that the cluster of diodes in the Vital Wave Violet.

This combination of LEDs to produce deep blue lighting really makes the colors pop with the fluorescent pigments of many different corals being very strongly excited by the overall spectrum. The effect is particularly striking in the shallow water SPS corals which are some of the few corals that have fluorescent blue pigments.

You can see that the Vital Wave Violet looks better than the Sun lamp, but Lords and other Acans don’t have as much pigments that are responsive to deep blue lighting.

The spectrum of blue lighting in the Vital Wave Violet LED spotlight is particularly great at bringing out the fluorescence in these chalice corals

The Vital Wave Cyan has LEDs that cover the higher wavelength end of the blue spectrum with Cyan and Blue LEDs

The Vital Wave Cyan LED spotlight is a brighter blue LED light who’s greener cast won’t be appreciated for overall lighting but dang does it make some colors explode. The yellow, oranges and red colors found in Acans, Lords, Chalices and gold torch corals stand out under the Vital Wave LED spot as if they were somehow illuminated from within.

The bright fluorescence created by the Vital Wave Cyan is completely different and complimentary to the Vital Wave Violet. The LEDs used to excite the warmer fluorescent proteins include 3 x 475nm blues, 1 x 450nm royal blue and naturally, 3 x 500nm cyan LEDs.

The Vital Wave Cyan is excellent at highlighting the yellow mouths, purple oral discs and green splashes of color on this Echinophyllia

The orange, red and yellow colors of Acans and lords are particularly responsive to the colors of the Vital Wave Cyan LED spotlight

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Jake Adams

Jake Adams has been an avid marine aquarist since the mid 90s and has worked in the retail side of the marine aquarium trade for more than ten years. He has a bachelor’s degree in Marine Science and has been the managing editor of ReefBuilders.com since 2008. Jake is interested in every facet of the marine aquarium hobby from the concepts to the technology, rare fish to exotic corals, and his interests are well documented through a very prolific career of speaking to reef clubs and marine aquarium events, and writing articles for aquarium publications across the globe. His primary interest is in corals which Jake pursues in the aquarium hobby as well as diving the coral reefs of the world.