Led lighting question.

[Colgan10]

Quick question. I will be honest been reefing for 15 years and have always used metal Halides. Got out of the hobby while living in Hawaii. I’m setting up a bare bottom reefer xl300 roughly 80 gallons total. It’s going to be sps dominated I currently have two mp40s and two kessil a360x with the WiFi controller. I’ve done the 4 month brs cycle waited a month added a fish waited a couple weeks and added test frags. Everything has been doing fine for the past moth color is good on corals bases are growing been having to up dosing and looking at calcium reactors.

my question is I am relatively new with leds and I’m wondering if I need to add a third kessil a360x. From my experience with metal halides on my sps dominated 180 I feel like they were blasted with light. I’m all for adding another if it would be benefiting the corals.

 

[Cuong]

Id add another. Or run what u got with some supplemental t5s.

 

[svogun]

get/rent a PAR meter to see where your levels are before considering adding more light. Having a PAR meter with LEDs is very helpful. My target for SPS is 300-400.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I would add at least one more, aren’t those fixtures only like 30w or something?

 

[nereefpat]

90 watts per fixture. Kessil recommended spread is 24x24, but 18x18 is probably safer.

More fixtures does mean less shadowing when it comes to LEDs.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Oh ok that is not too bad then I bet one more would work. I would love to see some pics of these over tanks.

 

[TX_Punisher]

perfect candidate for some T5 supplementation.

 

[Colgan10]

perfect candidate for some T5 supplementation.

I’ve actually thought quite a bit about this my only question is how to mount the fixture I can’t really suspend anything above the tank due to its location.

I’ve actually considered making a hood for the tank and supplementing with metal halides.

 

[Colgan10]

90 watts per fixture. Kessil recommended spread is 24x24, but 18x18 is probably safer.

More fixtures does mean less shadowing when it comes to LEDs.

Yes I thought I would get better coverage as an added bonus

 

[TripleTruble]

How wide is the tank

 

[TripleTruble]

I had 1 on my 54 gal Corner and added a second made a difference but I did dual the intensity down

 

[hobbyreefer]

If you are planning on acropora then I think you need one 360x per 12 inches of tank width. I have a 5’ tank and have 5 360x and 4 T5s. My par is 300-400 through most of the tank.

 

[Colgan10]

How wide is the tank

22.6 inches the tanks is 36x22x22.6

 

[jda]

I would study up really well on acropora tanks with Kessils alone - not some noobie tank with a few boogers on frag plugs, but an actual mature tank. You will find that there are not many of this - this is not an outlier. Kessils are not a great light alone for acropora. At least some T5s are a good idea and nearly all have some, even when they love their Kessils. IMO, the would be near the bottom of my list to run on my acropora tanks.

Not trying to throw shade, only suggesting that you look before you spend any more money on another unit.

 

[Marc2952]

Quick question. I will be honest been reefing for 15 years and have always used metal Halides. Got out of the hobby while living in Hawaii. I’m setting up a bare bottom reefer xl300 roughly 80 gallons total. It’s going to be sps dominated I currently have two mp40s and two kessil a360x with the WiFi controller. I’ve done the 4 month brs cycle waited a month added a fish waited a couple weeks and added test frags. Everything has been doing fine for the past moth color is good on corals bases are growing been having to up dosing and looking at calcium reactors.

my question is I am relatively new with leds and I’m wondering if I need to add a third kessil a360x. From my experience with metal halides on my sps dominated 180 I feel like they were blasted with light. I’m all for adding another if it would be benefiting the corals.

I currently got 4 on my 75 gallon and this is how much PAR i get at 70%. Had to lower it to 50% because my LPS where starting to bleach.

 

[Colgan10]

I would study up really well on acropora tanks with Kessils alone - not some noobie tank with a few boogers on frag plugs, but an actual mature tank. You will find that there are not many of this - this is not an outlier. Kessils are not a great light alone for acropora. At least some T5s are a good idea and nearly all have some, even when they love their Kessils. IMO, the would be near the bottom of my list to run on my acropora tanks.

Not trying to throw shade, only suggesting that you look before you spend any more money on another unit.

what lights would you recommend from watching reviews it appeared to not be much different then and XR15. This is my point i dont see what the rage is about LED's they seem more of a hassle and headace to a good old 250watt radium. I have not been a fan of them so far and everyone has a million different opinions.

 

[Gordonm]

I would study up really well on acropora tanks with Kessils alone - not some noobie tank with a few boogers on frag plugs, but an actual mature tank. You will find that there are not many of this - this is not an outlier. Kessils are not a great light alone for acropora. At least some T5s are a good idea and nearly all have some, even when they love their Kessils. IMO, the would be near the bottom of my list to run on my acropora tanks.

Not trying to throw shade, only suggesting that you look before you spend any more money on another unit.

I would agree with that coming from a kessil.

 

[Marc2952]

what lights would you recommend from watching reviews it appeared to not be much different then and XR15. This is my point i dont see what the rage is about LED's they seem more of a hassle and headace to a good old 250watt radium. I have not been a fan of them so far and everyone has a million different opinions.

Kessils have better even apread then radions and thats a fact. Tbh they are both almost identical you cant go wrong with either one. Although i do agree that adding T5s is best as you remove the shadowing.

 

[jda]

If I had to run LEDs, it would be a wide panel, so likely RB Photon v2. I do still use MH as a main light source, though, so I am not the best person to ask - 250w Radium is still a best-of-breed light for a reason. I am just acropora and clams, so I don't get caught up in the stupid hype of bulb changes and wattage since I would need to have at least the same wattage in LEDs to replace the spread. I am all about performance and do not care at all (not even 1%) about apps, form factor or newness or coolness, so I am in the minority.

I have tried lots of LEDs that have not made it to my display tanks, but Photon v2 up high with all channels on 100% would be my approach - Therman does the best at this (he has lots of photos in his threads) and also Adam at Battlecorals (he uses MH and T5 too, so not as good as Therman, but still good - I hate using vendors to suggest things to hobbyists, so my apologoes, but he is as much as a hobbyist as any vendor).

You are right - lots of opinions, so choose well.

 

[Colgan10]

Ok so I added a third light and rented a par meter from BRS. I had 200-300+ par throughout the tank and pretty evenly spread throughout the tank. I’m currently running at 100 percent intensity for 8 hours with an hour ramp up and hour ramp down. Odd thing is some or most corals look great and are colored up and encrusting. Some corals look like they are bleaching out on the top part of branches. I watched BRS about wanting 200-300 par through out the tank should I just let the corals ride it out some that are bleaching are on the bottom of the bare bottom tank.

I’ll be honest I’m not a fan of LEDs thus far wishing I didn’t have a rimless tank so I could just make a canopy and run metal halides.

Any advice out there I don’t want to give up on leds the out thing about this whole situation is the sps, softies, Zoas, low in my 300 gallon tank that has 6 kessils on it are are doing amazing and colored up great one different I keep going back to is that tank has a sand bed. This tank is bare bottom and could be factoring in due to this is the first tank I’ve attempted barebottom to increase flow for the sps.