bobf216
Active Member
Just curious, I have been researching these lights and there is little to no data on these things. Does any one have one or a couple and how do they do with SPS. Im looking to use one on a 50 breeder.
Kessil A350W Tuna Blue lights
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Pkunk35
Valuable Member
I have one and it can grow SPS but I think it grows them slowly when compared to MH lighting and I do not 100% like the color for acropora under this light.
I love the light but I wouldn't pick it for SPS dominant, that's 2 cents from someone who is definitely NOT a sps expert.
FWIW I am actually upgrading my tank to 50 gal also and think I'm going with T5+LED combo.
I love the light but I wouldn't pick it for SPS dominant, that's 2 cents from someone who is definitely NOT a sps expert.
FWIW I am actually upgrading my tank to 50 gal also and think I'm going with T5+LED combo.
neverfinished
Community Member
we have been using them at our shop for about 8 months now (the kessil a350 narrow beams) we have 3 over our display tank (180g) and 1 a350 narrow beam over our 60g cube (sps dominant). i took about 2 months for our sps to adjust to the kessils, but once they did, it seems that they are growing pretty well. Every tank in our shop is run with either kessil a150's or kessil a350 wide beams and narrow beams. we have had them running for 6-12 months (some longer than others, as we had added more kessils to tanks down the line).
For a 50g breeder i would say to go with the a350w if you do go with a kessil. if you get the narrow beam you will have to dim it down a lot, and the wide beam also wives a better spread. We have 3 kessil a350 wide beams on our 8' coral tank, and those 3 light 8' easily.
just my experience with these lights, so far, hope this helps a little.
For a 50g breeder i would say to go with the a350w if you do go with a kessil. if you get the narrow beam you will have to dim it down a lot, and the wide beam also wives a better spread. We have 3 kessil a350 wide beams on our 8' coral tank, and those 3 light 8' easily.
just my experience with these lights, so far, hope this helps a little.
Pkunk35
Valuable Member
Not to hijack, but quick questions, how high off the water are you guys mounting them, and do you run them 100% on both channels?
I should prob reevaluate my sps husbandry in light of your comments.
bobf216
Active Member
Neverfinished, do you have a build thread or a video or pics of your cube under the A350. I am currently using the taotronic fixture but im going to try for something a little more unique and to help with the colors.
bobf216
Active Member
I have one and it can grow SPS but I think it grows them slowly when compared to MH lighting and I do not 100% like the color for acropora under this light.
I love the light but I wouldn't pick it for SPS dominant, that's 2 cents from someone who is definitely NOT a sps expert.
FWIW I am actually upgrading my tank to 50 gal also and think I'm going with T5+LED combo.
Pkunk do you have any video of this light over your tank?
bobf216
Active Member
Just ordered one A350W today for $360.00 dollars shipped from Unique Corals Home Page. As soon as it comes in I will get it hung and do an extensive review on it.
neverfinished
Community Member
i will try and upload a pic of our cube later. As far as hanging them, on our 180g with the kessila350 narrow beams, they are 2 feet off the water surface. on the cube with the same kessil it is roughly 16-18" off the water surface. both tanks run at 100% NOW, but when we first installed them we gradually increased the light intensity over a period of a month, so we didn't risk bleaching or burning any corals.
bobf216
Active Member
[video=youtube;cGNvd4whI-s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGNvd4whI-s[/video]
Here is a short video that i put together. The color of the light is more blue in the video but i am going to do another video with a more white light. This light is one of the most difficult that i have had to film thus far. a full review will be done over the next couple weeks.
Here is a short video that i put together. The color of the light is more blue in the video but i am going to do another video with a more white light. This light is one of the most difficult that i have had to film thus far. a full review will be done over the next couple weeks.
bobf216
Active Member
Kessil A350W Tuna Blue Initial Review.
I have a 29 Gallon Rectangle Tank. (Dimensions 30Lx18Hx12W) I have a canopy of this tank which is about 6 inches high and I had a Tao-Tronics 120W blue and white Led Light over my tank. I went with this light initially due to the value of the light ($130). I used this light for roughly 1-1/2 years. I experienced just ok growth with this light from softies, LPS, and some SPS (encrusting montis, Birdsnest, and Strawberry lemonade acro. This light eventually washed out the true colors of the coral due to the intensity and lack of spectrum. It was also a significantly loud light due to the 3 cheap cooling fans. I decided to switch this light out for the Kessil A350W. I had contacted the sales rep and he answered all of my questions. I also was reached out to by a few coral shops on the west coast saying how great this light is, so I made the switch. I had the old led Mounted in the canopy. If i were to mount this light in the canopy it would be too close to the water and I would no get a good enough light spread. So i took a 4 inch hole saw, drilled the hole in the center of the canopy and have the lamp surface mounted on the lid of the canopy. This light is significantly quieter, as a matter of fact the only noise you hear on my entire tank anymore is the trickling of water from the over flow into the sump. I used to get a decent amount of brown and green algae buildup on the glass. Since i have changed out lights i am only cleaning the glass off maybe once a week.
The lamp is mounted roughly 8-9 inches off the surface of the water. The light spread over the 30" of length is perfect. There are minor shadows underneath some ledges due to this being a single source lamp but it makes everything look so much more natural. If you think about it, the sun is also a single point light source and the ocean is naturally lit this way, creating small shadows, etc. The look of this light is absolutely spectacular. This thing has more shimmer than metal halides and the look cannot be compared to any other LED light that i have seen.
Control-ability is pretty straight forward. There are two small knobs on the top of the unit which control the two banks of LED's. I personally do not believe that an extended lighting cycle ( sunrise through sunset ) is necessary. I believe that it is more aesthetics, but it is cool to be able to have the lights on in your reef most of the day. I have this light set up on a simple timer and a set of moon lights that turn on once the Kessil is off. The old Taotronics LED lights that I had were very intense bright lights. These lights don't look nearly as intense and are much easier on the eyes. Many people have said that they seem dimmer but it is only because they are a different lighting style. I can say that these do look no as intense but the coral are reacting as if there is a ton of light and at first did not open up as much until i turned the intensity down.
As far as growth grows. I had a pretty bad tank crash back when hurricane sandy weather remnants came through Ohio. I lost power for 7 days. i lost a shrimp and few encrusting montis due to this. I have a frogspawn that almost died out as well as a hammer coral and some zoas. I had them under the taotronics light for about 3 weeks after and did not see any improvement on the corals. I went ahead and ordered the kessil because i wanted a distinguished look, a quieter light, and mostly i wanted my corals heath to improve. Since the addition of the new A350W my growth has been tremendous. The frogspawn and hammer are doing great as well as all my zoas. I will be adding a significant amount of encrusting montis, sps, and more zoas after the LEAR frag swap in two weeks. I will be documenting the growth so i will have photos to show.
All in all I love the light and the results that I am seeing from this light. It is a bit pricey but so far its been definitely worth it. Acclimation was very short as I was already using LED's, it took roughly 2 weeks. If you have any questions on the lights just let me know. I will be updating this thing as I get more SPS into the tank so I can document growth.
I have a 29 Gallon Rectangle Tank. (Dimensions 30Lx18Hx12W) I have a canopy of this tank which is about 6 inches high and I had a Tao-Tronics 120W blue and white Led Light over my tank. I went with this light initially due to the value of the light ($130). I used this light for roughly 1-1/2 years. I experienced just ok growth with this light from softies, LPS, and some SPS (encrusting montis, Birdsnest, and Strawberry lemonade acro. This light eventually washed out the true colors of the coral due to the intensity and lack of spectrum. It was also a significantly loud light due to the 3 cheap cooling fans. I decided to switch this light out for the Kessil A350W. I had contacted the sales rep and he answered all of my questions. I also was reached out to by a few coral shops on the west coast saying how great this light is, so I made the switch. I had the old led Mounted in the canopy. If i were to mount this light in the canopy it would be too close to the water and I would no get a good enough light spread. So i took a 4 inch hole saw, drilled the hole in the center of the canopy and have the lamp surface mounted on the lid of the canopy. This light is significantly quieter, as a matter of fact the only noise you hear on my entire tank anymore is the trickling of water from the over flow into the sump. I used to get a decent amount of brown and green algae buildup on the glass. Since i have changed out lights i am only cleaning the glass off maybe once a week.
The lamp is mounted roughly 8-9 inches off the surface of the water. The light spread over the 30" of length is perfect. There are minor shadows underneath some ledges due to this being a single source lamp but it makes everything look so much more natural. If you think about it, the sun is also a single point light source and the ocean is naturally lit this way, creating small shadows, etc. The look of this light is absolutely spectacular. This thing has more shimmer than metal halides and the look cannot be compared to any other LED light that i have seen.
Control-ability is pretty straight forward. There are two small knobs on the top of the unit which control the two banks of LED's. I personally do not believe that an extended lighting cycle ( sunrise through sunset ) is necessary. I believe that it is more aesthetics, but it is cool to be able to have the lights on in your reef most of the day. I have this light set up on a simple timer and a set of moon lights that turn on once the Kessil is off. The old Taotronics LED lights that I had were very intense bright lights. These lights don't look nearly as intense and are much easier on the eyes. Many people have said that they seem dimmer but it is only because they are a different lighting style. I can say that these do look no as intense but the coral are reacting as if there is a ton of light and at first did not open up as much until i turned the intensity down.
As far as growth grows. I had a pretty bad tank crash back when hurricane sandy weather remnants came through Ohio. I lost power for 7 days. i lost a shrimp and few encrusting montis due to this. I have a frogspawn that almost died out as well as a hammer coral and some zoas. I had them under the taotronics light for about 3 weeks after and did not see any improvement on the corals. I went ahead and ordered the kessil because i wanted a distinguished look, a quieter light, and mostly i wanted my corals heath to improve. Since the addition of the new A350W my growth has been tremendous. The frogspawn and hammer are doing great as well as all my zoas. I will be adding a significant amount of encrusting montis, sps, and more zoas after the LEAR frag swap in two weeks. I will be documenting the growth so i will have photos to show.
All in all I love the light and the results that I am seeing from this light. It is a bit pricey but so far its been definitely worth it. Acclimation was very short as I was already using LED's, it took roughly 2 weeks. If you have any questions on the lights just let me know. I will be updating this thing as I get more SPS into the tank so I can document growth.
Reef Fever
Valuable Member
I run two on my tanks (48" long) I'm very happy with them and once the coral got used to them their colors are excellent and growth is pretty good (mixed reef, lots of sps) IMO they are a great light
tencwhiskey
Active Member
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I'm interested in two of the kessils I have a 72 now front I'm trying to decide wether to do wide or narrow any suggestions?
neverfinished
Community Member
neverfinished
Community Member
Ladysaber
Active Member
Wow.. I had (still have them, they're currently in storage) 2 A350w over my old 30g. I chose the wide over the narrow because I wanted to highlight the hidden depths of the back of the tank (no dark corners for lurkers).
Mine were only at 50% on the tank, but they worked well for my mixed reef.
I'm not using them now only because I upgraded the 30 to a 90 and bought Radions.
I'm planning on using the Kessil again over my nano cube when I get it set up for my eventual seahorse only tank
Mine were only at 50% on the tank, but they worked well for my mixed reef.
I'm not using them now only because I upgraded the 30 to a 90 and bought Radions.
I'm planning on using the Kessil again over my nano cube when I get it set up for my eventual seahorse only tank
