Examining the Kessil A360 Tuna Blue deeper than ever before! | BRStv Investigates
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Agreed! We really appreciate the videos, time, money and resources it takes.
Tuffyyyyy
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Ryan, what about taking it further than just a comparison and being able to plug in your tank? i.e. plug in your IM40 or 40breeder and get the suggested lights with their tested PAR
Typing it out that may be too extensive, but would still be really cool.
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It is just a 1" aluminum C channel you can get from most hardware stores. Then painted a flat black and a few holes drilled in it for mounting. I am big on hiding cords and a clean mounting solution.
I have 2 on my 75gal and absolutely love them!!! My corals were not really growing until I installed these, I had corals for about a year and realy did not do anything within a couple of weeks after installing these the corals grew more than twice as much as they did for a year without them!!! Def will only use these in the future!!
waxhawreefer
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That was one of brs's best video to date, I know they're a big fan of Kessil and so am I, I had two on my 55 with two cheap T5 grow lights and everything turned to 100% and I got to that point where u could watch the sps grow , then my sump broke, end to that story, now I have the same two and 4 T5 grow lights on my 425xl, so far so good, never thought about adding another because the T5' s eliminate the majority of the shadowing, only thing that sucks is the minimum they go is 10%, which is still very bright if u have them in a living room, but I will say they have great customer service just in case and that should be in the conversation!!
Bananahands
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Thanks for the video, very informative. My two Kessil A360s arrived yesterday and I'm pretty exited to use them on my new build.
Ryan would you mind sharing the settings you use on your office tank? The mix of colors looks really good.
Ryan would you mind sharing the settings you use on your office tank? The mix of colors looks really good.
I think the coverage is something that gets overlooked by many; I don't think there is a light out there that compares in this regard. I have them mounted 5" above the water line and they still spill some light out of the tank at the bottom (75g 48x18). There was some mention of these vs the coverage and power of the ap700 and while that may be true, the modular design of the a360 allows for a lot of mounting options. Three or four on a 48" (what Kessil recommends by the way) tank allows you to angle them to eliminate shadows and hot spots; something that just isn't possible with the 700. I don't find them to be a bad value at all because the modularity is worth something to me. The lack of control is a valid issue for some but I think more harm than good comes from all the individual color options some of these lights offer.
Fugs
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I see so many reefers with LED lights capable of all of these really fine adjustments to spectrum, go searching for a profile (usually a copy of a famous reefer) that they end up setting and forgetting anyway. I love that the Kessil just does its best to blend and the rest is left to the aesthetics for the user.
@Ryanbrs Hi! As I mentioned in the video comments, this series is awesome! I am in the market for some new lights for my 2 meter long tank and will be waiting for more videos on other lights before pulling the trigger. PLEASE... if you could let us know how high above the water you could mount the Narrow lens version to get the same coverage you get from the Wide angle ones it would be great! If for example you can double the height with the NE version to 13-16 inches above water I believe a lot more people would consider them.
Not sure I understand the discussion going on here... At the recommended height and within the recommended coverage area these lights deliver adequate PAR levels. This only means that you have to use several of them which probably makes them the worst value out there. But it does not make them "bad" lights, just expensive ones. Its like saying that a Porsche is a "bad" car because it does not offer good value.... Ok, kessils are not the Porsche of reef tank LED but hopefully you get my point. And if you look at slief's 500 gallon SPS tank in youtube you will see that you can definitely have a stunning reef. To me personally (and I have had A360we before) the things I really do not like about them is 1) the lack of a proper moonlight effect (how hard could it be to allow it to go down to 1-5% intensity?) 2) the lack of programmability 3) not too keen on the spectrum as it seems to go from too blue to too white).
Thanks for your awesome videos
Not sure I understand the discussion going on here... At the recommended height and within the recommended coverage area these lights deliver adequate PAR levels. This only means that you have to use several of them which probably makes them the worst value out there. But it does not make them "bad" lights, just expensive ones. Its like saying that a Porsche is a "bad" car because it does not offer good value.... Ok, kessils are not the Porsche of reef tank LED but hopefully you get my point. And if you look at slief's 500 gallon SPS tank in youtube you will see that you can definitely have a stunning reef. To me personally (and I have had A360we before) the things I really do not like about them is 1) the lack of a proper moonlight effect (how hard could it be to allow it to go down to 1-5% intensity?) 2) the lack of programmability 3) not too keen on the spectrum as it seems to go from too blue to too white).
Thanks for your awesome videos
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It is interesting how we all think about lighting. A lot of reefers get tripped up on you "need 4 lights" which seems like a lot. Then completely float over the fact that many of the competitive lights cost around twice as much but have anywhere from two to four LED pucks in them. Net result is they all end up in the same cost neighborhood to properly light a tank. I think we are all going to see by the end of this series that it's very obvious, splitting some of these high powered lights up is going to be pretty advantageous as concerned to spread and shadowing. For example, four xr15 radions will perform better than two xr30's on a four-foot tank. Same with four AI 26's rather than two 52's. I have a feeling four AI primes might be better than most people would think and one of the best values. Eight Ai primes might be one of the best coverage solutions dollar for dollar.
As to the narrow vs wide. It's the same amount of light but focused in a different patten. I haven't tested it but shadowing, even distribution of par and hot spots are the issues with LED's. I am personally looking to explore how to get wider, not narrower. Raising them up is an angle of getting wider for sure. I don't think three would perform the way you want but you could get four and potentially raise them up higher. However, the wide version already performs almost ideally with four so I am not sure If I would want to mess around with it or add the extra inch to the modules for the reflectors.
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That was my assumption since they tested it at 50% intensity and had results roughly half of max intensity.
Results of various intensities on my own tank:
Notes:
1) Location 3 is centered under one light right to left but not front to back (approx 4" behind the center line front to back).
2) Locations 6 is very close to the center of the tank (left to right and front to back).
3) The lights are centered over the tank front to back and 15" apart (7.5" left and right of center).
4) The lights are mounted 5" above the water line.
5) There is a bit of light spillage on all viewing sides of the aquarium so the lights could be mounted closer to the water to increase PAR values without losing coverage.
6) PAR values were measured on our local clubs Apogee MQ-500 with full spectrum sensor using a correction factor of 1.32.
7) Standard 75g Marineland aquarium 48"x18"x21" (LxWxH).
8) Two Kessil A360WE running 65% color.
9) MP40s set to feed mode while measurements were taken.
10) Return from sump remained on but has fairly low flow and doesn't agitate water surface much.
They mentioned in a previous lighting video they always do 100% unless they specifically stated otherwise such as in the beginning of this video when they tuned it to 50% for a quick test of percentage output for various intensities. They show the average PAR of a single light at 50% intensity is 74 PAR at 4:30 in the video from 6.5" off the water and 6" deep. If the two light test shows numbers in the upper 200s at that depth, the only conclusion you can draw is they are at 100% intensity for the entire video.
Don't be fooled by PAR ratings and such on lights you can read too much into it people just think they have got to have the highest PAR rated lights Put it this way if you look into the ratings for the tyres on your car would you pay Formula 1 prices ?
They're good for what they are, but the price is a bit much compared to newer lights. Five years ago when they were first released, 400 a piece was reasonable. Here we are five years later and the price is still the same. I'm not sure this makes much sense at this price point anymore. Sticking with the car analogy, would you pay 2017 prices for a 2012 car? Your xr15 has like twice the PAR at the same price. Even if it has never drove off the lot, it's still older technology.
True, because PAR is something that hobbyists can measure relatively easily and cheaply, we get hung up on it and assume that we can use it to directly compare different LED arrays. PAR is not all that useful if one doesn't understand and consider the PUR (Photosynthetically Usable Radiation) that an LED luminare or array is putting out.
Put another way, any two random companys' LED arrays can produce quite different PAR numbers, but produce similar PUR that provides for the corals' health and well-being.
Ralph.
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