Examining the Kessil A360 Tuna Blue deeper than ever before! | BRStv Investigates

[Old Glory]

I just bought 4 A360s happy the lights got a good review. I will hang them around 8 inches when I set them up.

 

[hart24601]

You have to look at the spectral charts more as in indication of the "dose" of each Nm wavelength. An SB and Radiation lean more to the 420 than a kessil. The SB more so. Its visually what creates the signature "Look" of the fixture.

Orphik has 380nm uv lights, AI 400nm. I have played with LED blacklights from 365 to 400 have not noticed a tremendous difference with coral florescence at night so I don't think looks wise there is much difference between 380 and 400. In kessils case there is very little below 400 IMO in a useable output. I once worked for a biotech company looking at spectrums of light with a variety of very nice tools and while it's wasn't coral I have been advocating for violet and UV spectrum since LEDs hit the coral scene as I have seen how important the violet spectrum is.

I am not attempting to make any points pro or con kessil - just what I see.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

so I don't think looks wise there is much difference between 380 and 400.

Agreed.

l I have been advocating for violet and UV spectrum since LEDs hit the coral scene as I have seen how important the violet spectrum is.

And my eyeballs are almost bleeding(in a happy nerd good book way), looking at the research Dana and others have posted on coral biology. IMO, "we" still don't know as it hasn't been looked at closely enough.
neat stuff

 

[hart24601]

It is neat stuff. I worked with maize (corn) and being in private sector my work isn't published of course, but I won't buy an LED system unless it has at least violet in it! Or supplement with T5 at that same wavelength. Not saying maize and coral are the same of course, and I defer to the coral experts but I have been around lighting and photosynthesis enough to have opinions, haha. I mostly looked at mechanisms in order to determine if there was stress not light related that I could measure with light (sorta) - Non-photochemical quenching and the sort.

Got sidetracked... back to kessils...

 

[Gil03]

I don't get it...clearly as indicated by the video the A360W is a fantastic light and does what it says at the given parameters even the Kessil logic which to a lot of people for quite some time thought was complete BS, so why still the "But's?" mount the fixture 8" off the water line and you'll be fine with an 18" coverage area, end of story. The only negative if at all is the lack of controlability, that is the ONLY reason I recently switched to AI but I grew everything under 1 A360 in a 24 cube mounted 9" off the water line. I'll also mention having just changed from Kessil to AI I immediately miss the shimmer, the hydra 26hd makes my tank look artificial and somewhat dull like a T5 setup...don't get me wrong I can get more color pop but the overall tank look looks non natural. I'm sure people that have went from Kessil to something else will understand.

 

[JamesP]

I don't get it...clearly as indicated by the video the A360W is a fantastic light and does what it says at the given parameters even the Kessil logic which to a lot of people for quite some time thought was complete BS, so why still the "But's?" mount the fixture 8" off the water line and you'll be fine with an 18" coverage area, end of story. The only negative if at all is the lack of controlability, that is the ONLY reason I recently switched to AI but I grew everything under 1 A360 in a 24 cube mounted 9" off the water line. I'll also mention having just changed from Kessil to AI I immediately miss the shimmer, the hydra 26hd makes my tank look artificial and somewhat dull like a T5 setup...don't get me wrong I can get more color pop but the overall tank look looks non natural. I'm sure people that have went from Kessil to something else will understand.

Since the video focuses on the 250-350 PAR range, the point is there is only one single measurement point over 250 at 6" deep and 8" from the water produced by this light as seen in the beginning of the video (2:40) that falls within this 250-350 range. It later goes on to add a large amount of these lights to make the area where this ideal SPS range is located much larger, but it is not a very good PAR per dollar way of doing this when kessil offers the ap700 which does this better and for less money.

If the point of the PAR measurements was to see how much area in the 250-350 range there is, the a360 was barely even on the charts unless you put a large amount in a small space to bump those numbers up. At which point, why not just use the ap700 for less money and with more features and power?

 

[Old Glory]

but it is not a very good PAR per dollar way of doing this when kessil offers the ap700 which does this better and for less money.

AP700 is $900 x 2 = $1800 A360 is $400 x 4 = $1600. You need the same number of brackets to hang them so that cost is even. I don't see how the AP700 is less money.

 

[JamesP]

AP700 is $900 x 2 = $1800 A360 is $400 x 4 = $1600. You need the same number of brackets to hang them so that cost is even. I don't see how the AP700 is less money.

It's not until they get to the 3 or even 4 lamp setup that they get full coverage over the whole test area which is 4ft x 2ft roughly. You can almost do that with just one ap700. 2x ap700s in no way compares to 4x a360s as far as PAR. If you look at PAR per dollar, stacking up a360s is about the worst way to go. It can absolutely be done and I'm sure there will be success, but if it were my money I'd go with one or many ap700s if given the choice. If I were working with a small cube, I'd go with the single a360. I current have both fixtures so I'm not just speculating.

 

[hart24601]

Many other companies offer the same thing as kessil logic, which is just selecting the intensity and spectrum from actinic to 10k - just open the software and pick presets from 20k to 5k and set the intensity slider. You just have to ignore fiddling with color channels.

I do think overall just picking the spectrum and intensity is a good thing and not fussing with individual colors. However I 100% believe kessils motivation was not altruistic, I am guessing it was to reduce development and production costs and then branded by marketing as a positive feature. Kessil controllers are still lacking, especially for the price - it would have been a great expense and development effort to include individual color control for the company.

But that's just like, my opinion man.

 

[Peng]

When I saw these PAR readings I was like "oh I'm so glad I didn't go with Kessil." For that 40 x 20 tank you can easily go with a 6-bulb, 36" ATI T5 fixture and be set. Four kessil 360s are $1600 or $1700+ with goosenecks, which is IMO too expensive. The money you save by choosing T5 is enough for this tank to have 4-5 years of bulb supply.

 

[JamesP]

When I saw these PAR readings I was like "oh I'm so glad I didn't go with Kessil." For that 40 x 20 tank you can easily go with a 6-bulb, 36" ATI T5 fixture and be set. Four kessil 360s are $1600 or $1700+ with goosenecks, which is IMO too expensive. The money you save by choosing T5 is enough for this tank to have 4-5 years of bulb supply.

I found that I had to supplement my a360s with t5s to get enough PAR. I said it was leds with t5 supplement, but it was more like t5 with led shimmer. I can be honest with myself now that I've moved on, but at the time I was trying to defend my purchase.

 

[Gil03]

Since the video focuses on the 250-350 PAR range, the point is there is only one single measurement point over 250 at 6" deep and 8" from the water produced by this light as seen in the beginning of the video (2:40) that falls within this 250-350 range. It later goes on to add a large amount of these lights to make the area where this ideal SPS range is located much larger, but it is not a very good PAR per dollar way of doing this when kessil offers the ap700 which does this better and for less money.

If the point of the PAR measurements was to see how much area in the 250-350 range there is, the a360 was barely even on the charts unless you put a large amount in a small space to bump those numbers up. At which point, why not just use the ap700 for less money and with more features and power?

You're trying to compare a fixture that came out 4-5 years ago with R&D even before that to that of a current model like the AP? That's apples to oranges, if you have the money then of course you go with the newest tech being the AP albeit as ugly as that fixture is IMO. You can talk about poor PAR ratings all you want but the fact is there's plenty of stunning tanks utilizing this very fixture in SPS dominant tanks and BRS even states this in one of their other videos if I'm not mistaken.. and this is really all that matters at the end of the day. In a 4 foot tank people will stick two to three Radions at roughly $800 a unit, AP's x2, etc. You can't go wrong with any of these fixtures and for the 360 to even be in the discussion here roughly 5 years later is a win for them IMO.

 

[Tyler Caviness]

You can almost do that with just one ap700

I know you say you have one, but what makes you say this? Kessil says that recommended spread for an AP700 on an SPS tank is 36x24. That's the same as two a360we's.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

One month under a Kessil A160WE, 14g nano, 4" over waterline...

 

[JamesP]

I know you say you have one, but what makes you say this? Kessil says that recommended spread for an AP700 on an SPS tank is 36x24. That's the same as two a360we's.

Hopefully there will be a new video on the ap700 soon as ryan alluded to, but I dug up an older video where the ap700 was tested by brs and circled the area where the tests overlap. It would appear that the ap700 is roughly equivalent to the 3 fixture a360 setup as per previous brs videos as far as PAR output. Though you now have 3 cords, 3 power supplies, and you use 3x 90 watt fixtures vs 1x 185 watt fixture. So it costs more, takes up more space, and uses 30% more power to do the same thing. Overall it is just a bad recommendation to go with a bunch of a360s at this point in time now that there are better options available.

 

[Ryanbrs]

I have been using kessil for a while and have had a pair of a360 fixtures over my tank for about 3 years. I have a lot of respect for BRS and their unbiased review of equipment so please don't take this wrong, but this week I felt a bit of bias in the review as I am pretty sure these are the lights Ryan keeps over his office tank from what I remember. I think saying we need to lower the lights so they are almost dipping into the water and that we need a dense matrix array of dense matrix array lights just to be able to grow SPS in a tiny 6" depth of water is kinda silly if you think about it. To recommend one light per foot is pretty ridiculous also and implies it is a weak light. And to say they need to be so low they invalidate the testing that gives them a UL listing for safety purposes is just a bad idea. I think we are just trying too hard to give these lights a good rating on PAR output.

My honest experience with the lights are they are amazing in every way just as the video states, except they are extreme under performers as far as PAR goes. And I have spoke with kessil myself and they say PAR is not a good measurement of their lights, but I don't believe they use some alien technology that cannot be detected by our equipment and we shouldn't trust the raw data. Seems like an excuse to me. The lights have an amazing build quality, the shimmer is jaw dropping, the spectrum is perfect in every way, but the PAR is absolutely pathetic.

I just recently upgraded to the AP700 and if you are considering getting even just two of the A360 fixtures, STOP, get an AP700 instead. It costs about as much as two A360s and it is as strong as about four of them. The difference between the AP700 and A360s is pretty extreme. Also, you get the ability to add in green and red individually so you can tune the 'pop' as it was noted in this video that you cannot do that on the A360s. I would say for a small cube tank a single a360 is a good fit for a mixed reef. If you are wanting to do anything else and are a kessil fan as I am, save the money and just get an AP700 vs tons of a360s.

To be very clear, I LOVE kessils. I just feel as if this video paints the picture that these lights are better than they really are and recommends going to some pretty extreme measures just to force it to work where it could really be replaced with something else to do a better job. Don't hate me BRS, I love you guys! I just really don't agree with your assessment this time around which is pretty rare.

Fair feedback. No way around it, we all have a bias. The elements I appreciate definitely come through, however, to counter that I try really hard to provide the data so each person can come to their own conclusions based on their own desires. The data tells it's own story.

I do I think 8 inches is maybe the most common mounting heights for any light out there. Much higher than that and there is a tremendous amount of spill over into the room with almost any light source. I also think once we explore all the lights the reefing community might be surprised by how many of the available options find the best results spaced a foot a part but tuned down to like 30%. End of the day the module design is not really the greatest option for producing even spread or avoiding serious shadowing issues unless you raise it to 2+ feet off the tank or space them fairly close together. For instance, once we see the numbers I think we are going to see some real value in selecting 4 radion xr15s rather than 2 xr30's simply because you can space the four pucks every foot and even out the spread a bit. Same price just more flexibility. Likely the same with 4 AI hydra 26's rather than 2 hydra 52's. Unless you plan on mounting them really high or turning them on near 100% the ability to space them out is pretty valuable.

 

[Tyler Caviness]

Hopefully there will be a new video on the ap700 soon as ryan alluded to, but I dug up an older video where the ap700 was tested by brs and circled the area where the tests overlap. It would appear that the ap700 is roughly equivalent to the 3 fixture a360 setup as per previous brs videos as far as PAR output. Though you now have 3 cords, 3 power supplies, and you use 3x 90 watt fixtures vs 1x 185 watt fixture. So it costs more, takes up more space, and uses 30% more power to do the same thing. Overall it is just a bad recommendation to go with a bunch of a360s at this point in time now that there are better options available.

Very interesting! Thanks for pulling that up

 

[Ryanbrs]

I found that I had to supplement my a360s with t5s to get enough PAR. I said it was leds with t5 supplement, but it was more like t5 with led shimmer. I can be honest with myself now that I've moved on, but at the time I was trying to defend my purchase.

I think this is more or less what the BRS160 ended up as. T5's with LED's (ap700's at 30%) for color, shimmer, and dusk to dawn effects. I am honestly 100% ok with that because it really achieves all of my goals for a light source.

 

[JamesP]

I think this is more or less what the BRS160 ended up as. T5's with LED's (ap700's at 30%) for color, shimmer, and dusk to dawn effects. I am honestly 100% ok with that because it really achieves all of my goals for a light source.

That's what I ended up doing even with the ap700. I can just get much higher PAR in my top half of the tank with the ap700 vs the a360s.

 

[Ryanbrs]

Hopefully there will be a new video on the ap700 soon as ryan alluded to, but I dug up an older video where the ap700 was tested by brs and circled the area where the tests overlap. It would appear that the ap700 is roughly equivalent to the 3 fixture a360 setup as per previous brs videos as far as PAR output. Though you now have 3 cords, 3 power supplies, and you use 3x 90 watt fixtures vs 1x 185 watt fixture. So it costs more, takes up more space, and uses 30% more power to do the same thing. Overall it is just a bad recommendation to go with a bunch of a360s at this point in time now that there are better options available.

Sure hope to have a comparison tool for all these in the near future: )