Kessil A360WE

I picked up this stereo cable from Amazon for daisy chaining. It was 8 bucks and you can get cheaper ones, but I prefer this type of cable (braided) and wanted a longer one so I can run it down the mount from the first one and up the mount for the other, hiding the slack behind the tank. The bonus being I had it in 2 days via Amazon Prime rather than waiting.

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L5RIWGG
 
I have a 30x30 x24 cube tank. It was previously lit with 4 AI Hydra 52's (running at 60percent roughly). I supplement with 3 T5 fiji blue and actinic. I had great growth , I even had acro frags that fell to the bottom of the tank and started encrusting. They spread out so far that 3 frags covered 1/4 of my tank and they started to go to war against each other. But my colors were never that great. My Bonsai's lack that deep purple and bright green look and everything felt washed out.

I removed 1 T5 bulb, 2 Hydra 52 and added 4 Kessil 360WE. The kessils were 18 inches apart but basically form a square. My 2 Hydra 52 was moved to the sides.

After about 1 month now, all I can say is WOW. I really wish I had a before and after photo. My Bonsai never looked so good and some of my other corals I thought were ugly suddenly colored up a lot. I had a frag that I thought were deep dark green were really bright green.

I would hands down recommend the Kessils to anyone. I think the key tho is you have to get enough of them. You need enough to overcome the shadowing from lack of light.
 
For anyone moving from MH to Kessil how long did it take your SPS to acclimate? For me it's been about 3 months and I'm getting very little color. I started at about 65% and increased 5%/week until I peaked at 90%. Light is only about 4.5" from the surface. SPS are all ~12" below the light. I love the form factor and shimmer, but I'm not getting color. My sunset monti has turned a very high and pale red. Recently moved it up to see if it helps, but monti's don't tend to need much light.

FWIW, the frags all came from a friends tank running 14k MH. Frankly, at this point, I'm disappointed and considering a MH fixture to supplement the Kessil.
 
RedStangGA said:
For anyone moving from MH to Kessil how long did it take your SPS to acclimate? For me it's been about 3 months and I'm getting very little color. I started at about 65% and increased 5%/week until I peaked at 90%. Light is only about 4.5" from the surface. SPS are all ~12" below the light. I love the form factor and shimmer, but I'm not getting color. My sunset monti has turned a very high and pale red. Recently moved it up to see if it helps, but monti's don't tend to need much light.

FWIW, the frags all came from a friends tank running 14k MH. Frankly, at this point, I'm disappointed and considering a MH fixture to supplement the Kessil.
Click to expand...

You may actually be providing too much light. 90% at 4" off the water is a lot more intensity than you realize. Also, 5% a week is a pretty fast increase. You color settings may also have something to do with it. 14K would be about 95-100% on the color and should be a pretty white light.
 
Wow slief is correct. at 60% 9-10 inches off the surface, the PAR reading from my 4 kessils is roughly 350 or so depending on angle etc but thats corals at 12" below the water surface. At 90% 4.5" from surface, you are burning your corals. You better reduce that ASAP.

BTW my sunset montis are growing like mad at the bottom of my tank almost 30" from the light at 60%. And they never looked better!
 
So I believe this would be the best place to ask, on my 48"L 55g reef how many Kessils will I need to get full coverage?
 
TexReefs said:
So I believe this would be the best place to ask, on my 48"L 55g reef how many Kessils will I need to get full coverage?
Click to expand...

Each one can cover up to 24"x24". Two would be the minimum but depending on what types of coral you were planning, would might be ideal. That said you could easily get away with 2. Especially since most people don't run the aquascape from end side to the other but instead leave a bit of room between the rocks and the glass on either side.
 
slief said:
You may actually be providing too much light. 90% at 4" off the water is a lot more intensity than you realize. Also, 5% a week is a pretty fast increase. You color settings may also have something to do with it. 14K would be about 95-100% on the color and should be a pretty white light.
Click to expand...

andyman said:
Wow slief is correct. at 60% 9-10 inches off the surface, the PAR reading from my 4 kessils is roughly 350 or so depending on angle etc but thats corals at 12" below the water surface. At 90% 4.5" from surface, you are burning your corals. You better reduce that ASAP.

BTW my sunset montis are growing like mad at the bottom of my tank almost 30" from the light at 60%. And they never looked better!
Click to expand...

Thank you for the advice, I'll drop the intensity pronto.
 
slief said:
Each one can cover up to 24"x24". Two would be the minimum but depending on what types of coral you were planning, would might be ideal. That said you could easily get away with 2. Especially since most people don't run the aquascape from end side to the other but instead leave a bit of room between the rocks and the glass on either side.
Click to expand...

Slief this is the current set up

 
I have 2 360we and and my tank is more than two months old. A month ago I bought three corals Euphyllia, Acantastrea and Stylopora. I ran Kessil controller with acclimatization program for two weeks. All corals were on bottom of tank. All three had very good PE daytime and the LPS were inflated from the start. Then I moved the Stylopora to the middle of the tank (tank height 20") two weeks ago. A few days ago I saw tissue coming off the tip of the Stylopora and on closer inspection it was more pale on sides that were shaded. I also think it looks generally worse. The Kessils hangs 12" from the water surface. I think that I have been careful and I love the the light and form factor of the Kessils. My back upp plan is to use my ATI 4x39W fixture instead perhaps with the kessils as secondary light to add a little shimmer.

Tank volume is about 55g. Any input is appreciated.
 
PatrikD said:
I have 2 360we and and my tank is more than two months old. A month ago I bought three corals Euphyllia, Acantastrea and Stylopora. I ran Kessil controller with acclimatization program for two weeks. All corals were on bottom of tank. All three had very good PE daytime and the LPS were inflated from the start. Then I moved the Stylopora to the middle of the tank (tank height 20") two weeks ago. A few days ago I saw tissue coming off the tip of the Stylopora and on closer inspection it was more pale on sides that were shaded. I also think it looks generally worse. The Kessils hangs 12" from the water surface. I think that I have been careful and I love the the light and form factor of the Kessils. My back upp plan is to use my ATI 4x39W fixture instead perhaps with the kessils as secondary light to add a little shimmer.

Tank volume is about 55g. Any input is appreciated.
Click to expand...

A couple thoughts. First, you didn't indicate what your intensity or color is set to. Second, with a tank only 2 months old, it could be the fact that your tank isn't mature enough for many corals and may have nothing to do with the lights. A 2 month old tank is really young to expect corals to thrive regardless of nitrates, ammonia and Po4 levels and just because they appeared to do well for the first week or doesn't mean the tank wasn't really established enough. At this point, it's impossible to really guide without more facts about your settings and the tank. Things like flow, live rock, no live rock, RODI water, Po4, Nitrate etc all play a role.
 
A few weeks in and I am very happy with the look of my Kessils. Far too soon to draw any conclusions about coral growth. I have been fighting a bit of STN in a couple of my SPS corals, but I do not believe it to be related to the lighting changes. I started them out at 60%, and have recently bumped them up to 70 (ramping peak).

Those brackets are nice. Cluged mine.
 
slief said:
A couple thoughts. First, you didn't indicate what your intensity or color is set to. Second, with a tank only 2 months old, it could be the fact that your tank isn't mature enough for many corals and may have nothing to do with the lights. A 2 month old tank is really young to expect corals to thrive regardless of nitrates, ammonia and Po4 levels and just because they appeared to do well for the first week or doesn't mean the tank wasn't really established enough. At this point, it's impossible to really guide without more facts about your settings and the tank. Things like flow, live rock, no live rock, RODI water, Po4, Nitrate etc all play a role.
Click to expand...

Thanks for you comments. I'm going to let the tank stabilize a couple of months and add a frag now and then.

I'll try to describe my tank:
My schedule:Two weeks of ramping up from Intensity 30 to 75. Color at 60 10h and two hours between 0-30.

I have LR and two Tunze 6095. I use RODI. A lot of sargassum weed and some Caulerpa species and Valonia. Amphipods are everywhere on the LR. I got twenty snails of different sorts. I have the RLSS6i skimmer. KH is 8 Mg 1350 and Ca 430. I manually dose KH and Ca. I have 11 small Chromis Viridis. No cyan or hair algae.
I will measure nitrate and phosphate which I have not done so far. I have calcareous algae growth and no nuisance algae so far so good.
 
PatrikD said:
Thanks for you comments. I'm going to let the tank stabilize a couple of months and add a frag now and then.

I'll try to describe my tank:
My schedule:Two weeks of ramping up from Intensity 30 to 75. Color is at 60 10h and two hours between 0-30.

I have LR and two Tunze 6095. I use RODI. A lot of sargassum weed and some Caulerpa species and Valonia. Amphipods are everywhere on the LR. I got twenty snails of different sorts. I have the RLSS6i skimmer. KH is 8 Mg 1350 and Ca 430. I manually dose KH and Ca. I have 11 small Chromis Viridis. No cyan or hair algae.
I will measure nitrate and phosphate which I have not done so far. I have calcareous algae growth and no nuisance algae so far so good.
Click to expand...

2 weeks acclimation from 30-75 is extremely fast and is a recipe for cooking corals. An acclimation from 30-75% should be done over the course of a couple months in my opinion. 5% increase a week is a good safe number. Also, 75% may even be too much. Especially given your rushed acclimation not to mention that if you are running 10 hours a day under 75% intensity, that would be a lot. Especially if the corals are not used to it.

My max intensity is about 76% but I only have 4 hours a day at peak intensity. I have a 4 hour ramp up and 4 hour ramp down to and from 76%. In the real world, the suns maximum intensity on a reef only lasts a few hours if that. The rest of the time it's either working it way up or down on the horizon.

Here is my light curve. It's very gradual once it gets to about 70%. The orange line is intensity and blue line is color.
imagejpg1_zps2ac94a6a.jpg
 
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