Ai Hydra 26HD vs Kessil 360WE

Dnraiders · Jan 25, 2016

I've done my research and have have narrowed it down to either a Ai hydra 26hd or a kessil A360we for my Mr. aqua 32 (~24X18X18). I have read reviews from both sides but havent had reviews from someone that has seen or own both of them. Heres what I have gathered:
Ai Hydra 26HD
Has a built in wifi controller.
cheaper
fixture is bigger
customer service is an issue
no warm white leds(coral growth myth?)

Kessil A360we
no controller(+$100 for the basic controller)
more expensive
sleeker design
great customer
according to a couple par meter results, the kessil is much stronger than the Ai
Shimmer(not a huge fan but wont mind it)
They manufacturer their own leds and have a lot of research into them( many claim better coral growth.
I do see more kessils being sold used in the forums making me think that they did not like them

Does any one have anything to add? anyone have had both? which one did you like better?
Thanks

rayn · Jan 26, 2016

Had both here. Had Kessil for a while, ran 3 over my 120 for a bit. Just had a Kessil go out on me and decided to switch to the hydra 26 hd. The color on the hydra is amazing. The controllability is cool on the app. Kessil has true UV, but not sure that is a reason to buy over hydra.

My vote is hydra. No extra controller needed, and extra color options besides blue.

ejazzle · Jan 26, 2016

I ended up going with the hydra hd. The colors seemed much more vivid with the hydra hd and I really liked the ease of control with the Hydra app. I put the kessil and hydra right next to each other and had multiples of the same frag under each light. Everything under the Hydra just looked much more vibrant. Also since I got the hydra (about a month ago) my polyp sized has about tripled. I guess that's the difference between my old strip light and pucks.

fragit · Jan 26, 2016

Following along

Ann_A · Jan 26, 2016

I have not had both but I am in the process of returning my AI Hydra 26 HDs that I ordered less than 3 months ago.

The hydra HDs seemed like a great choice based on reviews and my past experience with AI lights. However the first 2 I received did not match; One of the lights had a defective channel and the output between the two units was drastically different. I contacted AI Support and after discussing the issue with them they sent me a replacement light. The replacement was significantly brighter than either of the two other lights. A few days later a second replacement light showed up which was apparently not even on record at AI. After testing the second replacement light which wasn't even supposed to have been sent, I had 4 lights that did not match each other and were nearly impossible to get to sync with each other.

Recently I was able to get the two replacement lights to match each other but they would not sync with each other. I could connect them to my network and could connect to each independently but they would not recognize each other and I couldn't connect them together.

The lights definitely had a nice spectrum and seemed plenty powerful but due to the substantial amount of difficulty I had with them I have elected to go with Radion XR15W Pros instead. So between the two lights (Hydra HDs or Kessils) I would probably recommend the Kessils mainly because the Hydras did not perform well for me. I have seen some amazing tanks using the Kessils and know of plenty of people who love them.

borgie · Jan 26, 2016

I would recommend the kessils I have the standard 26s and hate them with a passion. They don't stay connected at all. Customer support is very poor with them. Just bought the a160 to put over my frag tank and already seeing dramatic improvements in my frags compared to the display.