Kessils and MH?

[Kehaulani]

So I have two kessil 360WE running over my 75 gallon tank. I have mostly zoas and LPS in there. Someone told me it's better to run MH with my LEDs. Is this true? my kessils are ramped up high doing the peak hours and then slow dim down. I hear MHs are more for growth but not color. Not sure if that's 100% true because I know every tank is different. So I'm wondering what you all think. I want both great color and growth. Any suggestions for lighting combinations? Pictures of your setups/lighting schedules are welcome
-K

 

[HaWrasser]

i run a single 360we over a 70 gallon cube and i am getting some good growth throughout with some lps on the sandbed and montiporas on the top of my rockwork. i think that tow 360WE's over a 75 gallon tank filled with mostly zoa and lps would be plenty. how high do you have your kessils ramp up and what is your lighting schedule like are you running them on a controller or manually? i have my light peak at 65% power and 75% color. i went higher but i bleached the life out of some of my monti's. i think it might be overkill for zoas and lps if you put on a MH as well but if you do add a mh to your system i would say to definitely dial back the power on your kessils and slowly acclimate the corals to the additional lights.

 

[reeffirstaid]

I would stick with you Kessils and certainly not consider combining them with MH lighting, unless of course you are baking instead of reef keeping. If there are areas of your tank a Kessil isn't reaching, then I would add an additional Kessil. A Kessil LED at 100% output puts out more than enough light for any reef animal, and enough light to kill many of them. I have 3 Kessils over my reef, which has a mix of about every coral you can imagine, and have never had them over 60% - and everything is doing well.

 

[diablomaster9045]

It would be hard to incorporate halides with kessils on a 75g. a better option would be t5's with your kessils. 2 bulbs on each side of your kessils. but for zoas and lps this would be overkill as everyone else said. but this would be an awesome setup for sps.

 

[Kehaulani]

It's run by a controller. It's all blues when it comes on at around 7am and then slowly turns into whites at about 9am. They are set to 100% power at about 12 til 3pm then start to dial down again and eventually go off at 8pm. All my LPS are at the bottom as well as my zoas because I'm still messing with my rock work. Nothing seems to be bleaching and I'm getting great growth with all my zoas. I thought it would be overkill to add a MH but kept hearing all the hype about em so I started to wonder.

 

[HaWrasser]

unless of course you are baking instead of reef keeping

this had me cracking up lol!

 

[diablomaster9045]

It's run by a controller. It's all blues when it comes on at around 7am and then slowly turns into whites at about 9am. They are set to 100% power at about 12 til 3pm then start to dial down again and eventually go off at 8pm. All my LPS are at the bottom as well as my zoas because I'm still messing with my rock work. Nothing seems to be bleaching and I'm getting great growth with all my zoas. I thought it would be overkill to add a MH but kept hearing all the hype about em so I started to wonder.

Halides are an SPS thing. If you're not keeping a majority sps reef I would not use them. LED is good for everything else.

 

[HaWrasser]

100% for 3 hours seems like a lot to me. have you considered maybe eve trying to dial it down a bit for a couple of weeks and see how the corals react?

 

[Kehaulani]

100% for 3 hours seems like a lot to me. have you considered maybe eve trying to dial it down a bit for a couple of weeks and see how the corals react?

No I haven't but maybe I will try that. The guy that specializes in saltwater in my town told me that he runs his kessils over his frag tanks at 100% so my 75 would be fine as long as I acclimated my corals to it which I did. But maybe I'll dial it down to 65% and see what happens. What does your light schedule look like?

 

[Kehaulani]

Halides are an SPS thing. If you're not keeping a majority sps reef I would not use them. LED is good for everything else.

So maybe that's where the confusion is. I always thought it was for mostly sps but I guess a lot of people I talk to just assume MH are the way to go no matter what corals you have. Someone I know has MH over her 35 gallon hexagon and she has no sps whatsoever. She has softies and lps. and she is always talking about how I should upgrade.

 

[HaWrasser]

yeah who knows they may respond well to a little less intense light. ill put a picture of my schedule up ive been messing around with it recently, i currently have it set up on a acclimation period of 2 weeks because i just got a new rainbow monti i dont want to fry up. usually i have my color peak around 75% but its not as high in this pic, i just turned it down

 

[reeffirstaid]

I would consider dialing it back from 100% - that is a lot of light. Halides can be used to keep any corals - SPS lovers use them as they are still the "gold standard" for keeping light hungry corals. LEDS have changed a lot where aquariums are concerned, and now LED lighting can perform as good as halides, even for tough to keep SPS corals. For me, halides use far too much electricity, generate too much heat and have costly bulb changes to ever consider over an LED fixture. I was an early LED adopter and am not surprised to see their burst in popularity.

 

[HaWrasser]

i think you mean your friend wants to upgrade her MH to your dual Kessils

 

[HaWrasser]

agreed MH give off way to much heat and use alot of juice. i would need to run a chiller in the summertime if i had a MH over my system. with just leds i dont need one or even any fans for that matter. some people hate on the kessils because they are a single point source of light but if you can afford to put a few of them they are just awesome imo

 

[rovster]

Halides are an SPS thing. If you're not keeping a majority sps reef I would not use them. LED is good for everything else.

I agree with this. I used to run MH with Kessil 150's for supplement but it was a primarily SPS tank. I think the combo is killer for SPS, but would probably be overkill for anything else.

 

[jdpeters]

sounds like overkill

 

[Kehaulani]

i think you mean your friend wants to upgrade her MH to your dual Kessils

Haha maybe. she's one of those know it all reefers. So I'm not sure how much of what she says I believe. Hence my post. All the suggestions have been super helpful. Will dial down my lights and see if I see a change. I do have some polyps of red hornets (about 6 of them together) that has a single polyp that won't open completely. Could that be cause too much light?

 

[JVH]

I am upgrading soon and decided to get a kessel 360w and put it on my 30g reef tank.. I am totally AMAZED at the color and growth! I think after 3 days I noticed difference! EVERYTHING in the tank has improved only n a few short weeks. I run a 12hr cycle with a ramp up to only 80% for 3hrs before a slow ramp down. Since the tank is small I was afraid to cook them at 100%. I can only imagine the growth at 100% in a bigger tank! Best investment I made in made in this hobby! I have no need to add anything else except an additional kessel if needed on the bigger tank. My 2 cents!

 

[diablomaster9045]

So maybe that's where the confusion is. I always thought it was for mostly sps but I guess a lot of people I talk to just assume MH are the way to go no matter what corals you have. Someone I know has MH over her 35 gallon hexagon and she has no sps whatsoever. She has softies and lps. and she is always talking about how I should upgrade.

Halides are awesome don't get me wrong. I love my halides. But when you already have the kessils and you're not doing sps, there's no point in switching. zoas and LPS do fine under LED. Something I have noticed about led and zoas though is led's make zoas much smaller. While with halides most zoas get fairly large. Just an observation, I have no clue what might cause this.

Just stick with your kessils and if you want to get into the SPS world, add t5's instead. They will work better together with your kessils. Kessils in the middle with 2-3 T5's on each side (Front and back).

 

[diablomaster9045]

I am upgrading soon and decided to get a kessel 360w and put it on my 30g reef tank.. I am totally AMAZED at the color and growth! I think after 3 days I noticed difference! EVERYTHING in the tank has improved only n a few short weeks. I run a 12hr cycle with a ramp up to only 80% for 3hrs before a slow ramp down. Since the tank is small I was afraid to cook them at 100%. I can only imagine the growth at 100% in a bigger tank! Best investment I made in made in this hobby! I have no need to add anything else except an additional kessel if needed on the bigger tank. My 2 cents!

What lights did you have before the kessil?