Hybrid AP9x set up question

[legacy2mj]

I think Iv decided I’m going to supplement my 2 Kessil AP9x lights with the reef brite dual hybrid kit. I have a SPS dominant Cade S2 1200. So the width from edge to edge is 46”. Would I want the 36” kit or the 48”?

Also, the setup comes with the hanging bracket mounts. But my ceiling above the tank is 30 feet high. So I think elevated mounting brackets of some kind would be the easiest solution. But I’m having issues finding ones I know would work..

Any recommendations or assistance would be awesome. Thanks!

 

[ReefLaw]

I have a 5 foot tank with two ap9x's and two 4 foot reefbrite xhos. The whole fixture is only 4 feet and is perfect for lighting. Go with the 36". Mine is 12 inches above the tank

 

[legacy2mj]

I have a 5 foot tank with two ap9x's and two 4 foot reefbrite xhos. The whole fixture is only 4 feet and is perfect for lighting. Go with the 36". Mine is 12 inches above the tank

Ok sweet. That solves that part, now what about the mount? Like I said in the OP the ceiling isn’t an option. On BRS video on this fixture theirs is on brackets that attach to each side of the tank. Rounded arch type, which would work great, but I couldn’t find them. How do you have yours mounted?

 

[ReefLaw]

I hung mine from the ceiling using a single piece of 80/20 aluminum. I attached the kessils with screws and the reefbrite with a single mounting kit from reef brite. You could do the same thing with the wall behind your tank.

 

[CBonito]

If you have the kessil arms/extensions and they are mounted to something other than your tank (it's my personal recommendation you don't mount them to your tank), you can mount the reefbrites to those. Go to their site and read the product descriptions and documentation because for your kessils, an extra spacer ordered from McMaster-Carr is required for the installation which they also post the link to. But you dont need to hang anything from the wall or ceiling if you don't want to.

XHO-X Series Dual - Reef Brite

The X Series Dual will bring out incredible color and fluorescence in your corals, Anemones, and other invertebrates while promoting growth.

www.reefbrite.com

 

[legacy2mj]

If you have the kessil arms/extensions and they are mounted to something other than your tank (it's my personal recommendation you don't mount them to your tank), you can mount the reefbrites to those. Go to their site and read the product descriptions and documentation because for your kessils, an extra spacer ordered from McMaster-Carr is required for the installation which they also post the link to. But you dont need to hang anything from the wall or ceiling if you don't want to.

XHO-X Series Dual - Reef Brite

The X Series Dual will bring out incredible color and fluorescence in your corals, Anemones, and other invertebrates while promoting growth.

www.reefbrite.com

Good share with that! Thank you. It does appear I have a couple options, which helps. I’d really prefer having the control on my phone so I can get synced up with my kessils, but $200 for the Bluetooth addition seems a bit steep. Now a day that should be a standard feature I think.

 

[legacy2mj]

I hung mine from the ceiling using a single piece of 80/20 aluminum. I attached the kessils with screws and the reefbrite with a single mounting kit from reef brite. You could do the same thing with the wall behind your tank.

Last question. Now that you have it, do you wish you would have got the quad? It’s a expensive addition regardless so I don’t want to go with the dual and be upset I didn’t just get the quad.

 

[CBonito]

Good share with that! Thank you. It does appear I have a couple options, which helps. I’d really prefer having the control on my phone so I can get synced up with my kessils, but $200 for the Bluetooth addition seems a bit steep. Now a day that should be a standard feature I think.

I have the kessil arms and extensions mounted to the back of my alufab stand so they dont touch the tank and you could literally put a book shelf on top of them that way. More than strong enough to support anything.

But yeah, those kits come with the means to mount to kessils, including the AP9X with that small caveat. But if you order the spacer with the lights, who cares? lol

The cool thing about the reefbrite setup is that I think with the 36" gig, you can put 4 a360s, or a500s into it, and still only need 2 kessil arms, so there's that if you keep it all kessil. I'm personally thinking of adding an a500 since my tank is SPS.

 

[legacy2mj]

I have the kessil arms and extensions mounted to the back of my alufab stand so they dont touch the tank and you could literally put a book shelf on top of them that way. More than strong enough to support anything.

But yeah, those kits come with the means to mount to kessils, including the AP9X with that small caveat. But if you order the spacer with the lights, who cares? lol

The cool thing about the reefbrite setup is that I think with the 36" gig, you can put 4 a360s, or a500s into it, and still only need 2 kessil arms, so there's that if you keep it all kessil. I'm personally thinking of adding an a500 since my tank is SPS.

Yea that’s an excellent way to strongly support it. But, I can’t access that part of my tank. I think I would secure a unistrut of some kind to my wall into studs using lag bolts. Then come off that with a couple sturdy arms and use the suspension hangers off of those… I could support the arms with some 90 degree angle iron if needed. I could make it more than strong enough to support that weight. I have my 85” tv mounted on the wall and it weighs 115 pounds.
But again, the important question…. Will I regret not getting the quad after it’s said and done? And as much as I don’t like the price of the Bluetooth connector, I feel like that’s necessary since I don’t run an apex. Just getting really expensive if we’re talking about those, and the quad rather then dual.

 

[CBonito]

Yea that’s an excellent way to strongly support it. But, I can’t access that part of my tank. I think I would secure a unistrut of some kind to my wall into studs using lag bolts. Then come off that with a couple sturdy arms and use the suspension hangers off of those… I could support the arms with some 90 degree angle iron if needed. I could make it more than strong enough to support that weight. I have my 85” tv mounted on the wall and it weighs 115 pounds.
But again, the important question…. Will I regret not getting the quad after it’s said and done? And as much as I don’t like the price of the Bluetooth connector, I feel like that’s necessary since I don’t run an apex. Just getting really expensive if we’re talking about those, and the quad rather then dual.

That would work fine as long as it's into studs. No drywall fasteners please!

Regarding the quad, it's hard to say.

I have a par meter coming tomorrow just because of this crap! I want to know FOR SURE what's up!

Isn't the AP9X the same thing as like 2 a360s? Because that's what I have, and I am just considering dropping the a500 bomb in between both of them and letting it eat instead of messing with strips. But that's just me. I like the metal halide look of old fart legend and lore, and that would be more than enough light even for those 1000 dollar one inch corals hand crafted by god himself. My 2 360s with 55 degree reflectors I am almost positive are enough light, but to pull strong colors, I need some more.

When I come up with PAR figures I can share...I mean it's smart to just have a general idea before doing anything.

https://www.reef2reef.com/data/video/3429/3429680-6bf51498b72bef6d538229707ff8fe76.mp4

 

[legacy2mj]

That would work fine as long as it's into studs. No drywall fasteners please!

Regarding the quad, it's hard to say.

I have a par meter coming tomorrow just because of this crap! I want to know FOR SURE what's up!

Isn't the AP9X the same thing as like 2 a360s? Because that's what I have, and I am just considering dropping the a500 bomb in between both of them and letting it eat instead of messing with strips. But that's just me. I like the metal halide look of old fart legend and lore, and that would be more than enough light even for those 1000 dollar one inch corals hand crafted by god himself. My 2 360s with 55 degree reflectors I am almost positive are enough light, but to pull strong colors, I need some more.

When I come up with PAR figures I can share...I mean it's smart to just have a general idea before doing anything.

https://www.reef2reef.com/data/video/3429/3429680-6bf51498b72bef6d538229707ff8fe76.mp4

I have a PAR meter, I bought 1 a couple months back. So I know where I’m at at numbers wise with the 2 AP9x lights. Yes, I believe you are correct with the 2 a360s… the AP9x are potent, I’m 12” above the surface, tallest acros prolly 3” below surface and at 50% I read a smooth 350, hotspots 400+… so these bars would be completely supplemental to remove shadows. Which of course has a lot of benifit. I’m also transitioning to moonshiners method. I keep a good stable tank now and test every 2 days. But I’m going to have my water tailor made for excellence.

 

[CBonito]

I have a PAR meter, I bought 1 a couple months back. So I know where I’m at at numbers wise with the 2 AP9x lights. Yes, I believe you are correct with the 2 a360s… the AP9x are potent, I’m 12” above the surface, tallest acros prolly 3” below surface and at 50% I read a smooth 350, hotspots 400+… so these bars would be completely supplemental to remove shadows. Which of course has a lot of benifit. I’m also transitioning to moonshiners method. I keep a good stable tank now and test every 2 days. But I’m going to have my water tailor made for excellence.

If that's true then hahahaha @ my tank because my tank is 12 inches tall and mine are 8 inches off the surface with 55 degree reflectors and run at like 84 percent. I'm probably going to laugh at what I find. But those acro colonies in the video are growing and getting more color and they were purchased out of a 500 PAR tank. And 2 of the stronger ones are sitting on the bottom. So are my frags and they are growing and coloring up too. And I'm looking for more light, but we'll find out tomorrow if I really am looking for more...you just never know. Maybe I just need some strips too. If that's the case, maybe I'll buy the 24" quad strip. That'll give me dimmer areas on the very ends for anyone who cant stand the heat. Looks like it's 800 bucks which is no big deal. I was looking at some orpheks too. They make some great stuff.

 

[legacy2mj]

If that's true then hahahaha @ my tank because my tank is 12 inches tall and mine are 8 inches off the surface with 55 degree reflectors and run at like 84 percent. I'm probably going to laugh at what I find. But those acro colonies in the video are growing and getting more color and they were purchased out of a 500 PAR tank. And 2 of the stronger ones are sitting on the bottom. So are my frags and they are growing and coloring up too. And I'm looking for more light, but we'll find out tomorrow if I really am looking for more...you just never know. Maybe I just need some strips too. If that's the case, maybe I'll buy the 24" quad strip. That'll give me dimmer areas on the very ends for anyone who cant stand the heat. Looks like it's 800 bucks which is no big deal. I was looking at some orpheks too. They make some great stuff.

Orpheks are really nice, I think if you took a pole of 100 random reefers I would venture to bet orpheks are either 1 or 2.
After I got my par meter I ended up raising my 2 kessils up around 6 more inches cause there were spots hitting 700 easy. So raising them really evened out the spread a lot and blanketed things way more even. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see some pretty high numbers when you check tomorrow lol.. did you get the Apogee MQ-510?
I doubt you will need to add anymore par, more then likely dial back, then like me use the bars to fill shadows.
I have a pretty large plating strawberry shortcake that umbrellas thick. Here’s a top down, you can see it’s thick.

 

[CBonito]

Orpheks are really nice, I think if you took a pole of 100 random reefers I would venture to bet orpheks are either 1 or 2.
After I got my par meter I ended up raising my 2 kessils up around 6 more inches cause there were spots hitting 700 easy. So raising them really evened out the spread a lot and blanketed things way more even. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see some pretty high numbers when you check tomorrow lol.. did you get the Apogee MQ-510?
I doubt you will need to add anymore par, more then likely dial back, then like me use the bars to fill shadows.
I have a pretty large plating strawberry shortcake that umbrellas thick. Here’s a top down, you can see it’s thick.

Yeah, I'm sure I'm going to see shocking numbers. I mean, every colony I have here is now growing. Even the ones on the bottom. I'm beginning to get stronger colors on all the branch tips and there is new growth beginning. Nice corals!

 

[legacy2mj]

Yeah, I'm sure I'm going to see shocking numbers. I mean, every colony I have here is now growing. Even the ones on the bottom. I'm beginning to get stronger colors on all the branch tips and there is new growth beginning. Nice corals!

I’m curious, what readings did you pull?