Kessil Troubles with my coral
- Thread starter Briko03
- Start date
- Tagged users None
slip66
Community Member
Yeah I have 2x 360we over my shallow. 8 inches of water depth. I only run at 25% intensity peak. My acans are in the shade and they really don't like it still. Seems plenty strong for my sps.
scardall
2500 Club Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2007
- Messages
- 2,573
- Reaction score
- 1,750
- Location
- Cocoa, Florida
- What state or country do you live in
- Florida
Just my 2cents. Not all Led lighting is created equal. Kessils, Orphtek and Aqua rays are the best overall LED designs around. Now PUR (this is what is most Important) Spectrum 1st and Par second. I used layers of egg crate between my Aqua rays and livestock for several weeks. try this and see what happens. Re check water parameters just to be sure and try moving livestock that needs less light further down etc. Good Luck PS: Don't forget about water movement.
dbrewsky
Active Member
I recently used a apogee par meter on my 360WE lights and my readings were barely breaking 200 par with the lights 11 1/2" above the water surface and 3-4" below the water directly centered on the light hotspot at 100% intensity and 90% color. Im not trying to rattle cages, just providing my data that I collected. My opinion for your tank is to run them at 100% intensity over a 8 hour photo period including ramp up and down. You also might be better served with the 360N optics on your tank depending on your coral keeping goals.
scardall
2500 Club Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2007
- Messages
- 2,573
- Reaction score
- 1,750
- Location
- Cocoa, Florida
- What state or country do you live in
- Florida
Hey Guys PAR is not the main key here, PUR should be 1st then PAR. Ever wonder what the PAR is just above the Reefs (Excluding the Extreme shallow and deep reefs)
I'd be interested in more detail about the PUR of a Kessil and how that relates to sps health.
Also, how do we know when we need to turn up the intensity? I've got a few newish frags that are washed out now. Is that indicative of too much light?
scardall
2500 Club Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2007
- Messages
- 2,573
- Reaction score
- 1,750
- Location
- Cocoa, Florida
- What state or country do you live in
- Florida
This site has LINKs to information concerning PUR and PAR: http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/index.html#specials
Yes PUR is important, but we can't measure PUR and the PAR we are talking about is from pretty similar sources - blue heavy LED. We are not talking about warm white or green spectrum which is high in PAR but very very low in PUR.
Kessils are great lights, but they are still LED - they don't have ultra advanced tech that cree or Osram or SemiLED don't have. They used violet and UV before the other big brands did and that was a huge advantage, but now most of the others have caught up and are using UV and violet diodes. The spectrums are not all that different, here is hydra 52 with some Kessils. There are of course some differences, but really most the major brands are not that different. The hydras have a surprisingly strong UV bump.
Kessils are great lights, but they are still LED - they don't have ultra advanced tech that cree or Osram or SemiLED don't have. They used violet and UV before the other big brands did and that was a huge advantage, but now most of the others have caught up and are using UV and violet diodes. The spectrums are not all that different, here is hydra 52 with some Kessils. There are of course some differences, but really most the major brands are not that different. The hydras have a surprisingly strong UV bump.
scardall
2500 Club Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2007
- Messages
- 2,573
- Reaction score
- 1,750
- Location
- Cocoa, Florida
- What state or country do you live in
- Florida
I would like to be able to afford a led fixture that I could program different Spectrum's/patterns for a specific amount of time each day.
How new are the frags? It can be hard to tell if the frags just washed out because of a new environment or because of lighting. Too low of nutrients (undetectable nitrate) will also wash frags out. I would put them in lower light for now, but it's hard to make hard rules on the amount of light and coral.
When there is too much light coral get rid of the extra energy by converting it to heat. You can have coral in ultra bright light, but you need ultra high flow as well to dissipate the heat. Higher nutrients also seem to help coral adapt to higher intensity light and finally there have been a few research papers that indicate that a pH below 8.0, at the temps we run our tanks at, the low pH increases bleaching. So there are a lot of factors at play in individual tanks!
SPS can be tough to watch and see how happy they are, but lps and softies generally tell you if they are ok. If the zoas stretch it's not much light. If they look normal then you are good, if they get too much light they will shrink and not open much - generally open at the start of the day and shrink as the day goes on. Most softies and LPS will do this also if in too much light and be puffy if they want more light - with most of the coral happy in a very large range of light intensity.
Frags are a month old. One is sunset montipora. It lost is intense orange color and is now a lighter cream orange color. The polyps are still bright and extend decently. The other is a mystic sunset that lost its deep red and turned maroon.
Both are in very high, mp10, flow.
Nitrates are zero and phosphates are zero on an API test (probably higher).
Matt
mr_gasket
Community Member
The hydras have a surprisingly strong UV bump.
Good factual information!
Here is something I came across while reading about the Kessil 160. It would be nice to see more lights compared with a UV meter.
"the Hydra 26 is providing around 2.0 milliwatts of UV light around 8 inches underwater, a single Kessil A160we provides closer to 15.0 milliwatts of UV at the same depth."
Read more: http://reefbuilders.com/2015/01/06/kessil-a160we-led-spotlight-review-the-best-gets-even-better/#ixzz3gjWALBJq
I agree that other LED light assemblers are catching up in terms of UV spectrum. However, I do believe there is still some technology that Kessil has over some of the other manufacturers in UV strength.
Most other manufacturers purchase LEDs from someplace and add some logic and a heat sink to their lights, whereas Kessil develops everything in house. I think there is something to be said for that.
Good factual information!
Here is something I came across while reading about the Kessil 160. It would be nice to see more lights compared with a UV meter.
"the Hydra 26 is providing around 2.0 milliwatts of UV light around 8 inches underwater, a single Kessil A160we provides closer to 15.0 milliwatts of UV at the same depth."
Read more: http://reefbuilders.com/2015/01/06/kessil-a160we-led-spotlight-review-the-best-gets-even-better/#ixzz3gjWALBJq
I agree that other LED light assemblers are catching up in terms of UV spectrum. However, I do believe there is still some technology that Kessil has over some of the other manufacturers in UV strength.
Most other manufacturers purchase LEDs from someplace and add some logic and a heat sink to their lights, whereas Kessil develops everything in house. I think there is something to be said for that.
I wonder how much UV plays a part in coral health? I admit that the a160 is very bright to me, but I have no idea how the corals feel.
My LFS guy said they have a bad reputation for not growing acropora very well and thinks my a160 isn't going to cut it even in my small tank.
My last light was custom built by me using old cree leds. Cool white and royal blue. My sps corals grew very well. I'd hope this Kessil beats the pants off what I did on my own.
Kessil told me the a160 was plenty for sps corals considering my tank size, for whatever that's worth.
I remember seeing that reefbreeders article too. The take away I got from that was how very low the UV is from either. But then again you can question if UV is even a good thing since that is below 400nm (Kessil might have a 380nm LED in their cluster). What seems even more confusing is if you look at the big site most people run their hydra with the UV turned almost off!
I don't know if Kessil developed their own LEDs. I was under the impression they developed their close matrix, but used other manufactures LEDs like the other big companies do. But I don't know for sure. They are cool lights though.
I don't know if Kessil developed their own LEDs. I was under the impression they developed their close matrix, but used other manufactures LEDs like the other big companies do. But I don't know for sure. They are cool lights though.
I did find an image that showed the old 350 had:
390 - 2
430 - 4
460 - 14
470 - 11
CW - 11
So that 390 would give them that UV bump, ecotech and ai have 400nm so half of the "peak" will be outside the UV cutoff of 400nm. Not that it really matters, but if one was going to talk about the definition of UV it would be applicable.
390 - 2
430 - 4
460 - 14
470 - 11
CW - 11
So that 390 would give them that UV bump, ecotech and ai have 400nm so half of the "peak" will be outside the UV cutoff of 400nm. Not that it really matters, but if one was going to talk about the definition of UV it would be applicable.
mr_gasket
Community Member
I'm certain I had read an article in advanced aquarist a while back that said around 335nm was harmful to coral, but I can't find the specific article now. I guess that makes a bit of sense since UVB (290-320) is more harmful to humans than UVA (320-400).
