newbie LED question

Should be, it will be very white though

 

i would think that number of 3watt led's for that size tank would be more then enough wattage to grow anything...almost to the point of burning the corals possibly. if you can maybe start out with with 1/3 the toal lights on and slowly build up until you have all 6. going along with what gortan's fisherman said maybe modify the lighting to a 50/50 blend...three whites and three blues or even four blues and two whites to give it more of an actinic appearance. four whites will almost drown out the 2 blues almost to the point of not noticing any actinic spectrum in your tank i would think.

i have a 120 gallon with two kessil a350's on it for a combine wattage total of 180 watts. so your 12 gallon is 1/10th the size of my tank...so 180 watts divided by 10 would be 18 watts...and 6 3 watt led's equal 18 total watts. i have been told i have enough lighting to grow almost anything in my 120 as well...possibly on the low end of enough for my tank so in comparison maybe you are also on the low end of enough for your 12 gallon.

 

so far my corals love my lighting and i have a 50/50 blend of sps and lps as well as a few soft leathers and zoas. so i guess what i was trying to say that even though you and i both may be on the low end of having enough lighting for our corals that you should be good to go as far as getting sps to grow in your 12 gallon with the option of possibly adding more light later on. but like i said before dont blast all your lights all at once...build up to that so you dont burn them. i built my kessil's intensity up over time so i wouldnt fry any frags.

 

Maybe just keep your corals down low and in some shady areas and gradually move them over the course of a couple weeks and see how that will work. I think you can have a great looking reef with what you have now. A lot of people aren't "believers" in led lighting and dont give them credit. I think they are great and once some results are compiled on their effectiveness compared to metal halides or t5 lighting that people will realize their is more energy efficient method of lighting a reef.