Kessil / AI / Radion / etc??

[Ranjib Dey]

AI, Mitras, and Radion all have tight clusters.
Not zero disco, but very tiny effect, not like the old fashioned wide arrays.

Yup, that was my exact point. They all are awesome, will grow all corals, including acros. But none will have shimmer like kessil and none will provide only two knobs to control the spectrum. The disco effect is not at all prominent like the old school led array (BBs as well) but its there. Its like that scratch in the tank that only you know, no one else, but that does not help , as you stare at the tank most, and the scratch always annoys you .. may be I am overreacting. Kessil is prohibitively expensive :-/, so I can see this not a good choice for only a little bit of better shimmer. I run nano and pico tanks, so for me it was not that expensive , and it was very incremental. I got the a360 for my biocube when the tank was 4 months old, then A80s for the pico tanks one by one after they were almost 8-9 months old. In fact my zoas grew much faster under ABI tuna blue bulb which was 20$ :-/

 

[Ranjib Dey]

One thing I forgot to mention is that Kessil in terms of technology is class apart. They use dense matrix not just closely positioned individual leds. Its very different than others. Kessil's parent company DiCon is the original brain behind the technology and they have Kessil like class apart products across Studio lights/filmmaking, building lightings & fluorescence microscopy. Kessil's founder's are thre berkely scientists who collaborated with DiCon to bring the densematrix to for horticulture & reef tanks

 

[Bruce Spiegelman]

Yup, that was my exact point. They all are awesome, will grow all corals, including acros. But none will have shimmer like kessil and none will provide only two knobs to control the spectrum. The disco effect is not at all prominent like the old school led array (BBs as well) but its there. Its like that scratch in the tank that only you know, no one else, but that does not help , as you stare at the tank most, and the scratch always annoys you .. may be I am overreacting. Kessil is prohibitively expensive :-/, so I can see this not a good choice for only a little bit of better shimmer. I run nano and pico tanks, so for me it was not that expensive , and it was very incremental. I got the a360 for my biocube when the tank was 4 months old, then A80s for the pico tanks one by one after they were almost 8-9 months old. In fact my zoas grew much faster under ABI tuna blue bulb which was 20$ :-/

But what if Kessil's grow corals more effectively? Are they still over-priced? Then it's not just the shimmer.....

 

[Ranjib Dey]

But what if Kessil's grow corals more effectively? Are they still over-priced? Then it's not just the shimmer.....

No they dont. My experience had been coral growing has more to do with blue composition and intensity. I had far better growth with 27$ ATI tuna blue bulb. The challenge I faced was it was not visually as stunning as Kessil (particularly because I had a kessil lit tank right next), and it was not dimmable, which caused some new additions to bleach out, cause i could not acclimate them in lower light settings. There is no experimental data that I am aware of shows Kessil is out performing in coral growth. There are PAR , shimmer , cooling and other type of comparisons available, but nothing purely on coral growth. And my experience has been its easily possible to out perform kessil, if you know what you are growing, how much PAR it needs and just tune for growth, instead of anything else. Put other way, if I am a coral farmer, I may prefer to go with AI or something lot cheaper.

 

[Gablami]

Maybe some Kessil owners will chime in, but how does 2 360s compare to 1 700?

The AP700 pucks have more LEDs packed into it compared to the A360s, giving you broader spectrum and more PAR. I also think it looks better, and can be programmed wirelessly leading to fewer wires running around.


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[Ranjib Dey]

yeah A360 is 90 watts, while Ap700 is 180 watts, i think the standard recommendation is to have 3 watts per gallon .. or something like that

 

[Flagg37]

I have a 48”x30” footprint and have two ap700’s oriented perpendicular.

They give great light but the only gripe I have is their software. There have been several times I’ve sat for an hour trying to adjust something minor that should have only taken 30 seconds.

 

[euod]

That's a clever mount. Is it etched out where the lights are?

 

[sfsuphysics]

The AP700 pucks have more LEDs packed into it compared to the A360s, giving you broader spectrum and more PAR. I also think it looks better, and can be programmed wirelessly leading to fewer wires running around.

Do they have a few more LEDs in each cluster? Ok so I guess in that aspect the AP700s are better, plus they come with a controller built in don't they? And if you have an open top, then yeah I'll agree they look better.

I'm just one of those weird people who goes against the grain, and don't think you need to have uniform lighting over the entire tank, put lights where the corals are and be done with it. Where as fixtures like the AP700 kind of force your hand. That said I'm not a fan of the A360s either

 

[capescuba]

I'm just one of those weird people who goes against the grain, and don't think you need to have uniform lighting over the entire tank, put lights where the corals are and be done with it. Where as fixtures like the AP700 kind of force your hand. That said I'm not a fan of the A360s either

Here is the trade off - my wife wants this to "look nice" too. So I probably want the uniformity

 

[sfsuphysics]

Yeah I get that, but I remember seeing some really nicely done Japanese tanks with spot lights, preLED days mind you. Plus you're going to naturally have brighter areas due to rock height. But to please the wife go uniform

 

[Flagg37]

That's a clever mount. Is it etched out where the lights are?

Nope. I wasn’t 100% sure where the placement would be so I opted to let them shine through it. It is star-hire glass but it is 1/2” thick so I’ve found it blocks about 20% of the par value. I still only run them at like 55% though so it doesn’t matter to me.

 

[rygh]

To be clear: My favorites are still my 2 DIY ones in the fuge.
I built them using Lumia 5.2 dense arrays, and they have a really nice adjustable lenses.
I only wish I had the time to do that for the main tank.

 

[capescuba]

Found a brand new Kessil AP 700 for $700 that I am picking up tonight New tank / Stand is being delivered on Friday .... Here we go again

 

[Wlachnit]

Found a brand new Kessil AP 700 for $700 that I am picking up tonight New tank / Stand is being delivered on Friday .... Here we go again

Good score on the Kessil

 

[Thales]

Radions and the diffuser. I havent actually used the diffuser yet, but the data looks fantastic.

 

[Ibn]

What Rich mentioned. Already planning for the new lights that I'll be running over the 40x24 footprint and will be going with 3 x XR30 G4 Pros. It was between these lights or a couple of Orphek Atlantik V4s instead. I would have gone with the Orphek if they made a 36" model. That's what it ultimately came down to. Never did like the spectral output of the Kessils. The Radions are proven and are run over quite a number of SPS dominant tanks.

 

[capescuba]

Good score on the Kessil

Drove up to Sac to grab it, but brand new, unopened light!

 

[sfsuphysics]

Found a brand new Kessil AP 700 for $700 that I am picking up tonight New tank / Stand is being delivered on Friday .... Here we go again

If you want another, I see a few sites selling the AP700 for $799 for Black Friday, and if a few sites are selling it at this price, then every site will since these are manufacturer lowered prices due to MAP.

 

[capescuba]

Yeah I saw that, Probably don't need another AP 700 .. perhaps an A360, which is also down to $349 but .... I just spent $$ on lot's other goodies that I need. Salt, test kits. Pumps etc....