Missing that Halide Sparkle

[ShawnSaucier]

I was in Top Shelf Aquatics on Monday and one of there new display tanks had this small Kessil light on it. It had that beautiful light ripple effect that I used to get with halides, and made me really miss that look. Like when you are diving in shallow water on a sunny summer day.
I have 5 XR15 units over my system now with diffusers. Of course as the light is diffused, there is very little ripple effect. Actually even without the diffusion, the ripple wasn’t the same.
I don’t want to shop for new lights, my system is doing fine with what’s on there now. But dang do I miss that sparkle.

 

[Waynerock]

I was in Top Shelf Aquatics on Monday and one of there new display tanks had this small Kessil light on it. It had that beautiful light ripple effect that I used to get with halides, and made me really miss that look. Like when you are diving in shallow water on a sunny summer day.
I have 5 XR15 units over my system now with diffusers. Of course as the light is diffused, there is very little ripple effect. Actually even without the diffusion, the ripple wasn’t the same.
I don’t want to shop for new lights, my system is doing fine with what’s on there now. But dang do I miss that sparkle.

I have one power head really hitting the top of the water good to chop it up just for the ripple effect. That’s about as close to the shallow water snorkeling ripples I can get. Very hypnotic

 

[blasterman]

I love shimmer.....always have. Even back when I ran halides, but there's no way I'm going back to fire bottles.

I like the shimmer of Kessil and the concept, but from a technical perspective their color is anemic compared to LED lights I build myself or even the Mars Aqua black boxes I modify for friends.

The problem with the Radion units is they are trying to ride both sides of the fence. They use some of the best LEDs on the market and have a far wider of gamut of color to play around with and suite to taste than Kessil and are far more efficient. However, the Radion's have optics optimized for even light projection and avoiding hotspots, and for max shimmer you want a small light source with preferable a reflector or very collimated optics. So, Radion engineers are trying to avoid the conditions that generate max shimmer while still having a compact package. If they made a Radion that was smaller and had tighter optics they would be getting whining and crying from reefers about shadowing and "how LEDs suck" and all that nonsense. Problem really exists between keyboard and chair.

I've built some Kessil killers using triple star royals with Bridgelux reflectors, but this get's into DIY category. Cree could help a lot by releasing a royal blue version of their XPH 70 (that LED is a beast but they won't do it. Market is just not big enough, so we're stuck with commercial lights based on itty bitty 3watt LEDs, or Kessil dense matrix.

 

[eyecandyaddict]

I love shimmer.....always have. Even back when I ran halides, but there's no way I'm going back to fire bottles.

I like the shimmer of Kessil and the concept, but from a technical perspective their color is anemic compared to LED lights I build myself or even the Mars Aqua black boxes I modify for friends.

The problem with the Radion units is they are trying to ride both sides of the fence. They use some of the best LEDs on the market and have a far wider of gamut of color to play around with and suite to taste than Kessil and are far more efficient. However, the Radion's have optics optimized for even light projection and avoiding hotspots, and for max shimmer you want a small light source with preferable a reflector or very collimated optics. So, Radion engineers are trying to avoid the conditions that generate max shimmer while still having a compact package. If they made a Radion that was smaller and had tighter optics they would be getting whining and crying from reefers about shadowing and "how LEDs suck" and all that nonsense. Problem really exists between keyboard and chair.

I've built some Kessil killers using triple star royals with Bridgelux reflectors, but this get's into DIY category. Cree could help a lot by releasing a royal blue version of their XPH 70 (that LED is a beast but they won't do it. Market is just not big enough, so we're stuck with commercial lights based on itty bitty 3watt LEDs, or Kessil dense matrix.

LEDs dont look good they don't look like an actual reef which is what I want.