Well, I made some decisions last weekend and ended up with some new lights.
Ron and I visited the East bay and stopped by El Diablo corals for the first time. Very cool store and it was nice to finally meet Jess. We picked up some corals and marveled at the killer Kessils he has running over many of his tanks. Kessils are something I have been considering, but this is months down the road.
When we got home and starting talking about where to place the coral, I realized there really wasn't anywhere that I wanted to put them that had enough light. So into the frag tank they went. This started a discussion about the lights. "What if we just replaced the 36" metal halide / PC combo fixture in the middle? Well that would take at least 3 of the Kessil A350's...........Could we keep the Maxspect LED's running and just get 3 Kessils? This came from Ron, so suddenly my ears are perched..........Um..........Yeah, we could do that. "Let's just do it then."
So, needless to say, with permission I was wasting NO time! I called around to see who had them in stock and was surprised to find almost everyone was sold out. I Knew I had seen at least one at Diablo, so I called Jess and he had 1 narrow and 1 wide. I wanted 2 narrow and 1 wide.
The concept was to use the wide as Actinic and the narrows for the SPS and deeper coral. Turned out "All about Fish" which is very close to Diablo corals had a few in stock as well. So at 3 in the afternoon on Monday we drove to the east bay and bought 2 narrow Kessil A350's and 1 Wide A350.
By the time we had dinner, got home and figured out a way to hang them, it was almost 9pm. LOL! I wasn't going to let that permission pass!!! 8)
Anyway, my idea of using the wide for actinic quickly went away. These lights are WAY too freaking AWESOME to waste one with mood lighting. So, I put the wide in the center of the tank and the narrows on the right and left of it. However, the coverage just wasn't right? The center has a tall rock with SPS all the way down it. There seemed to be a dark spot down the front of the rock, so I switched a narrow to the middle and it was perfect. I moved the wide to the right of it which has mostly LPS and soft coral and the other narrow to the left to hit the Anemone. Couldn't have been any better. This gave me the coverage I needed to turn the two Maxspect fixtures sideways and get much better coverage front to back. The tank is UNBELIEVABLE right now! I haven't been so excited since it was delivered.
This is temporary as we are planning to buy 3-4 more Kessils in the future to make the tank uniform in color, however it will be great for the next year or so. The hanging solution is also temporary as I just threw them up to get them up. LOL! It turned out pretty good for a rush job, but I will make something much more elegant when I buy the rest of the Kessils. Anyway, sorry for the long story..........here are some pics.
This is the tank with the Metal Halide fixure in the center. .......You can see the VERY obvious difference in light.
Here is the tank with the new Kessils and the Maxspects turned sideways.
The pics are from my iphone and are NOT doing this justice. But the shimmer and color is AMAZING! It's so elegant!
I bought a trellace at Home depot so I would be able to move the lights around as needed......worked great. I was able to place them right where I wanted them.
The Anemone basically gets its own light, and it is LOVING it! Doesn't reach anymore and is open wider than I have seen in a long time!
Anyway, that is the new lighting solution. I will try to get a decent video of the shimmer and such. Very pleased. Hope you like them too.
