sixpackgarage
reef mechanic
I'm usually very stubborn and will make things work, but the AP700 has beaten me. I'm spent. I had high hopes for this light.
Initially, I spent an hour or so just to be able to connect to the light, but didn't have any issues after that with connectivity.
I learned quickly that the light is very powerful. In fact I had my A360WE lights at over 90% and the PAR measurement from the AP was higher than my WEs at just 40% intensity. After a week or so 40% is where I settled because the corals seemed to tolerate the light at that setting.
First glitch. I noticed the first day that the left puck was dimmer than the right while ramping down at night. Emailed Kessil and they suggested plugging the light into its own receptacle. That's not an option due to my Tank's location. It has to be plugged into a power strip. I played around with programming like adding intermediate steps at ramp down and that helped somewhat.
Then I made the mistake of adding a few storm features just to see what they looked like. They were annoying, so I deleted them. Low and behold, they were still there. I kept seeing funny blips on my PAR graph while looking at Fusion while away. Then on a weekend, I noticed that the storm features were still active even though they were deleted from the program. After some emails with Kessil, I was told I just have to create a new program from one of the templates to get rid of the storm features (a known bug I guess).
Corals were doing ok for a while, but SPS had some pretty significant shadowing so I played around with various supplemental lighting and eventually just added my 360WEs at a low setting on the sides for shadow control. Corals liked that.
This probably sounds weird, but it's almost like my corals' behavior indicates that they want more light, but when I give it to them they respond negatively.
A couple of days ago I came downstairs and decided to just peek at my tank down the hallway and noticed the tank was much brighter than it should have been with moonlights on. It was about 2230 in the evening and my light cycle is 0900-2100. I checked my iPad and the program hadn't changed. I clicked on the program panel to try to see what's going on and hit preview to see what would happen. Hit save just as a matter of habit and the light dimmed to normal moonlight brightness. I wonder how many times this has happened without me noticing?
So last night as I was looking at my tank, I was reminiscing about the days when I just had my 360WE lights over the tank and what simple times those were. I never worried about my lights having issues and my corals always looked happy.
I packed up the AP700 and put it in the closet. For now at least, I'm back to not stressing about my lights. The A360WE and A160WE products are really what sold me on the Kessil brand.
If I have the patience to wait, I may try it again if the app is improved or other people find success and share their secrets. I'll take the blame and chock it up to operator error, but it shouldn't be this difficult to find success with a light fixture.
Last night when I turned on just the 360WEs my corals immediately perked up. My green Goniopora looked better than it has in a month.
Time will tell. Thanks for listening.
Initially, I spent an hour or so just to be able to connect to the light, but didn't have any issues after that with connectivity.
I learned quickly that the light is very powerful. In fact I had my A360WE lights at over 90% and the PAR measurement from the AP was higher than my WEs at just 40% intensity. After a week or so 40% is where I settled because the corals seemed to tolerate the light at that setting.
First glitch. I noticed the first day that the left puck was dimmer than the right while ramping down at night. Emailed Kessil and they suggested plugging the light into its own receptacle. That's not an option due to my Tank's location. It has to be plugged into a power strip. I played around with programming like adding intermediate steps at ramp down and that helped somewhat.
Then I made the mistake of adding a few storm features just to see what they looked like. They were annoying, so I deleted them. Low and behold, they were still there. I kept seeing funny blips on my PAR graph while looking at Fusion while away. Then on a weekend, I noticed that the storm features were still active even though they were deleted from the program. After some emails with Kessil, I was told I just have to create a new program from one of the templates to get rid of the storm features (a known bug I guess).
Corals were doing ok for a while, but SPS had some pretty significant shadowing so I played around with various supplemental lighting and eventually just added my 360WEs at a low setting on the sides for shadow control. Corals liked that.
This probably sounds weird, but it's almost like my corals' behavior indicates that they want more light, but when I give it to them they respond negatively.
A couple of days ago I came downstairs and decided to just peek at my tank down the hallway and noticed the tank was much brighter than it should have been with moonlights on. It was about 2230 in the evening and my light cycle is 0900-2100. I checked my iPad and the program hadn't changed. I clicked on the program panel to try to see what's going on and hit preview to see what would happen. Hit save just as a matter of habit and the light dimmed to normal moonlight brightness. I wonder how many times this has happened without me noticing?
So last night as I was looking at my tank, I was reminiscing about the days when I just had my 360WE lights over the tank and what simple times those were. I never worried about my lights having issues and my corals always looked happy.
I packed up the AP700 and put it in the closet. For now at least, I'm back to not stressing about my lights. The A360WE and A160WE products are really what sold me on the Kessil brand.
If I have the patience to wait, I may try it again if the app is improved or other people find success and share their secrets. I'll take the blame and chock it up to operator error, but it shouldn't be this difficult to find success with a light fixture.
Last night when I turned on just the 360WEs my corals immediately perked up. My green Goniopora looked better than it has in a month.
Time will tell. Thanks for listening.
