Kessil a360 vs reefbreeders v2

Mrcote1 · Nov 22, 2018

Hey everyone,
Looking to get some new lights and the kessil a360 and the reefbreeders both fall in the budget. Im looking to grow all sps in a 75 gallon. Anyone have experience with both and prefer one over the other? Being able to program the light ramping up and down throughout the day is important to me as well as I dont want the bottom to disco and of course coral growth is important. I will either get one reefbreeder photon v2+ unit or I believe 2 kessil a360s? Any one have thoughts?

Crabs McJones · Nov 22, 2018

For full sps on a 75 you'll likely want three kessils or you'll run into shadowing issues. The kessils are also not controllable as is you need a controller to run them. With that said I still love kessils and the shimmer and color blending and the way they make corals look. I'll always recommend kessil to anyone who asks

Devaji · Nov 22, 2018

hmm...like @Crabs Mcjones said for full SPS you prob. will need 3 Kessils you could do 2 with the aquatic life T5 light?

I have the V2 and just bought another V2+ for an upgrade I am doing! I had the 24" v2 on a 90 gallon about 15+" off water wonderful spread. the V2+ i believe has smoother ramping and better controller than the normal V2 I think for full SPS one of the 32" would do the trick. what nice about them is the light is not cone shaped like spot light like the kessils, AI etc. it more even across the tank.

reefbreeders doing a sale + X off you order depending how much you spend. just FYI

Crabs McJones · Nov 22, 2018

Devaji said:
hmm...like @Crabs Mcjones said for full SPS you prob. will need 3 Kessils you could do 2 with the aquatic life T5 light?

I have the V2 and just bought another V2+ for an upgrade I am doing! I had the 24" v2 on a 90 gallon about 15+" off water wonderful spread. the V2+ i believe has smoother ramping and better controller than the normal V2 I think for full SPS one of the 32" would do the trick. what nice about them is the light is not cone shaped like spot light like the kessils, AI etc. it more even across the tank.

reefbreeders doing a sale + X off you order depending how much you spend. just FYI

2 with t5s would work to

Mrcote1 · Nov 22, 2018

Yikes, 3 kessils and a controller brings the cost up quite a bit, and the 32" reefbreeder is enough on a 48" tank?

Devaji · Nov 22, 2018

Mrcote1 said:
Yikes, 3 kessils and a controller brings the cost up quite a bit, and the 32" reefbreeder is enough on a 48" tank?

well if you want wall to wall SPS then you might want the 48" like I said I used 24" on a 90 LPS and will be using 2x 24" on a 6' mixed reef LPS dom. tho.

I will bet getting a par meter to dial it in. will not be for a while but I will post my numbers and settings.

have you watched the BRS lighting video that just came out?

Mrcote1 · Nov 22, 2018

No I haven't, which one? And i just got an apogee mq-500 meter for a month so im trying to get the lights now so I can get my par right. And wall to wall sps would be the goal for one day haha

Mrcote1 · Nov 22, 2018

you said you think the 32 will be fine for all sps over a 75?

Im set on the reefbreeder now but just need to determine whether to get the 32 or the 48.

Michael Llabona · Dec 20, 2018

You will need 3 kessil or photon 48. I have the photon on my 90 with t5 retrofit. Light is about 15" above water. I do mostly SPS. I get no disco effect and I keep my red and green at 20%, blues at 80% , and white at 35%. I get about 400-450 par on top of my rock.

Michael Llabona · Dec 20, 2018

Mrcote1 said:
you said you think the 32 will be fine for all sps over a 75?

Im set on the reefbreeder now but just need to determine whether to get the 32 or the 48.

Do the 48 if you are going mostly SPS. You will want the extra light coverage once the SPS grows. Also very important to slowly acclimate your corals with this light

Mrcote1 · Dec 20, 2018

I ended up buying the 48 inch photon v2+
I do get a minor disco effect because they are only 8" off the water due to my canopy restrictions. Other than that I love the light. Wish there was a way for me to eliminate that disco effect though

Porpoise Hork · Dec 20, 2018

Mrcote1 said:
I ended up buying the 48 inch photon v2+
I do get a minor disco effect because they are only 8" off the water due to my canopy restrictions. Other than that I love the light. Wish there was a way for me to eliminate that disco effect though

Raise the light to 12" and increase all current channel power settings by 30% to maintain the same PAR levels. You will be amazed at how well the color blending and how much smoother the disco effect is. I did this and it made an absolute huge difference.

Jacked Reefer · Dec 20, 2018

Mrcote1 said:
I ended up buying the 48 inch photon v2+
I do get a minor disco effect because they are only 8" off the water due to my canopy restrictions. Other than that I love the light. Wish there was a way for me to eliminate that disco effect though

If you can’t raise it because of the canopy I would recommend ordering some frosted acrylic and putting it about an inch away from the fixture. Raise intensity by 15 percent and you have nice t5 like light.

Porpoise Hork · Dec 20, 2018

Kayden Hutchings said:
If you can’t raise it because of the canopy I would recommend ordering some frosted acrylic and putting it about an inch away from the fixture. Raise intensity by 15 percent and you have nice t5 like light.

I am looking into swapping the clear 100 degree lenses out for these or something like them on my V2+.

https://www.ledsupply.com/led-optics/10139-carclo-lens-frosted-medium-spot-led-optic

Jacked Reefer · Dec 20, 2018

I think this would be cheaper and provide better diffusion in the long run.
https://www.tapplastics.com/product/plastics/cut_to_size_plastic/acrylic_sheets_p95_matte/513#
The lenses will only diffuse one led at a time and not combine the spectrums like a sheet of plastic would

Porpoise Hork · Dec 20, 2018

This is true, however the diffuser sheet would need to be at least 3-4" below the light to really make a difference. I tested this with the diffuser from my kitchen light and that was how far it had to be to really see a significant impact at 8" above the water line when I had it at that height. For my setup I am wanting to soften the shimmer a little bit and when I tested with the diffuser up against the led's at 12" it was very close to what I want to have since the color blending is very good at that height.

Jay Norris · Dec 20, 2018

Mrcote1 said:
I ended up buying the 48 inch photon v2+
I do get a minor disco effect because they are only 8" off the water due to my canopy restrictions. Other than that I love the light. Wish there was a way for me to eliminate that disco effect though

What percent are you running channel 1 and 2? I would cut back on the Red and Green channels and increase the white a little to give you more full spectrum.

Mattj815 · Dec 20, 2018

Michael Llabona said:
You will need 3 kessil or photon 48. I have the photon on my 90 with t5 retrofit. Light is about 15" above water. I do mostly SPS. I get no disco effect and I keep my red and green at 20%, blues at 80% , and white at 35%. I get about 400-450 par on top of my rock.

I dont wanna hijack. But can you post a pic of your retrofit? Ive been considering doing it with mine.

Porpoise Hork · Dec 21, 2018

Jay Norris said:
What percent are you running channel 1 and 2? I would cut back on the Red and Green channels and increase the white a little to give you more full spectrum.

I was running them at 17% red and 11% green, but after talking with Logan at ReefBreeders about the lenses, blending, and spectrum I decided to stop using those channels. He stated that they are there because some like the appearance they give when used, but that the corals don't really utilize those colors. Logan also said that with them using a neutral 5500K white LED chip compared to the cool white 6500K that AI Hydras use, there really isn't a need to run the red's and greens as the whites provide what's needed in that range. So I dropped the R/G to zero and raised the whites up from 21 to 25, and then again to 31 for a two hour peak mid-day. After that the whites fall to 10% in late afternoon/evening. It's too soon to tell, but I have already seen a response in my acans and blastos, by then puffing up a lot more than they used to.

As for PAR numbers after dropping the red/green to zero, I only lost about 20 PAR overall, but then made it up with increasing the whites.