Kessil ap700 vs A360we

Zoaddicted

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
May 5, 2015
Messages
134
Reaction score
70
Location
San Mateo, CA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I played with the light at the store.

Honestly it really feels like two 360s in a panel fixture.

You still have the same limited control over your color settings. Sure they threw in some fancy demo modes, storm, rainbow disco effect, lol

Opening the app and seeing your only two control settings as:

%color and %intensity

These two settings AGAIN? lame!!!

I want control over how much UV, blues, reds, greens, etc!


I dont own the AP700 light but I did get to play with it extensively.

I have been running two kessil 360s over my tank for over a year. My next light will be a radion not the ap700.
 

Ladysaber

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 3, 2014
Messages
188
Reaction score
15
Location
Charleston, WV
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
You apparently didn't play enough with the light. My nighttime lights, when setting, goes from blues to purples.

These lights are full spectrum, exactly like the Radions. They offer all colors and all special programming (cloud cover, thunderstorm, aurora, rainbow) just as Radion does.
 

Ladysaber

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 3, 2014
Messages
188
Reaction score
15
Location
Charleston, WV
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
a7d1042ca33105296a55cf436c878642.jpg


These are the options for the manual use of color options. Over to the right side is the other options, just like the ones Radion offers (disco, demo, thunderstorm, cloud cover).

3df47572f0a23ec2b36c0663515b617b.jpg


This is the pop up screen you get when making your own program. Notice the rainbow dial? These lights offer far more than the usual blue/white.
 

Zoaddicted

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
May 5, 2015
Messages
134
Reaction score
70
Location
San Mateo, CA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
livedemo-500x424.png


This is what I want. You can control how much UV, Blues, Whites, Greens, Reds simultaneously at a single point in time.

Nobody ever wants their tanks to be all red or all green or all yellow at a given point in time. Come check out my green tank! Alright now lets try Rainbow mode!


Half of that wheel is useless. Why would you ever want your tank to look GREEN or RED or YELLOW?
 
Last edited:

Ladysaber

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 3, 2014
Messages
188
Reaction score
15
Location
Charleston, WV
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
The light is not meant to just be used with salt tanks. It has spectrum on there as well for fresh water and planted tanks.

I had Radion Pros on my tanks. The user interface is nice, but the lights were crap (at least mine were..4 bad lights in less than a year leaves a bad taste in my mouth for a huge waste of money).

Also keep in mind..when the Radions came out a few years ago, the user interface was as subpar then as the Kessil seems to you now.

I'll take the performance and the quality of the Kessils any day over the Radions.

Enjoy your Radions. Before you bash the Kessil though, I could easily make my tank all green, red, or yellow via my Radions.

Same thing Radion does, Kessil does. Difference is is that the Kessil is a sleeker product and you don't need ReefLink to program your lights via the app.
 

IronVulture

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 15, 2014
Messages
1,048
Reaction score
418
Location
Meadows Place Texas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
The light is amazing! Took about 15 min for me to get it set up and programmed. I put it over my bio cube to get a feel for how it works and all I can say is WOW! 900 bucks well spent. I will most definitely be buying another one when they are back in stock.
 

Ladysaber

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 3, 2014
Messages
188
Reaction score
15
Location
Charleston, WV
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I got the lights programmed today. I had a developer from Kessil call me to ask me what issues I'm running into while trying to set them up. They are extremely responsive to any questions customers have and that to me is a huge plus, as I'm big into customer service and follow up :)

So far, I'm extremely pleased with these lights and my corals haven't looked this good in 2 years.
 

bsstover

Acroholic
View Badges
Joined
Jul 17, 2014
Messages
358
Reaction score
161
Location
Hendersonville, NC
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I just got mine hung today over my 6ft tank. I replaced 4 AI Hydras with 2 of the lights. It's too early for me to give a review on growth from this light. What I do have to say is the light is sleek and as one would expect from a product by kessil it makes the tank look beautiful and colors POP.

Agree with above comment that programming was a little tricky at first and currently I have it set on acclimation. So far, I would have to say it's totally worth the investment. I had thought about waiting until the mounting arms are available. I have them hung with the optional hanging kits which were easy to install and from opening the box to having the lights programmed and running about 60 mins (most of this was programming).

The two lights "chain" together through wireless. One is set up as a network that all other lights will connect to.
 
Last edited:

Gamma

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 11, 2015
Messages
305
Reaction score
120
Location
Manchaca, Tx
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Played with the kessil just came in today at my lfs. Very nice but not fan of apple so waiting for it to come out for windows or android would be even better. Was going to add more T5s but think I'll hold off and see how reviews look.
 

bsstover

Acroholic
View Badges
Joined
Jul 17, 2014
Messages
358
Reaction score
161
Location
Hendersonville, NC
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
My next observation and comment on these lights comes down to controllability. There is a dial type controller to set color spectrum. The issue is you cannot (or I haven't figured out how yet) blend blues and reds because they are on opposite sides of the color wheel.

I'm used to my hydras that I can set individual intensity for each color.

Along this vein I also feel that setting the darkest color at 1% to create a moonlight effect is still too bright in my opinion.

I would like to see future iterations of the controls to provide for better color mixing and maybe this would allow for better moonlight effect.
 

nanoman28g

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 5, 2013
Messages
279
Reaction score
64
Location
San Antonio TX
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
The light is amazing! Took about 15 min for me to get it set up and programmed. I put it over my bio cube to get a feel for how it works and all I can say is WOW! 900 bucks well spent. I will most definitely be buying another one when they are back in stock.
You put an AP700 over a boicube just for testing right? What tank is it going to go over? Congrats.
 

scardall

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 23, 2007
Messages
2,551
Reaction score
1,710
Location
Cocoa, Florida
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
That's what I was thinking as well... I get perfect coverage over my 5 ft tank with the 360s and my rockswork is pretty minimal. The only thing I don't like about my current set up is the wire management... which is really an eyesore.
Build a hood and hang the lights inside. I recommend ceder as it doesn't rot like pine. This is my 75g reef with a 17+ year old stand and hood made from ceder. 192814-cc5e623c273f7ff31dc2cc264c55a326.jpg
 

Caring for your picky eaters: What do you feed your finicky fish?

  • Live foods

    Votes: 19 30.2%
  • Frozen meaty foods

    Votes: 52 82.5%
  • Soft pellets

    Votes: 10 15.9%
  • Masstick (or comparable)

    Votes: 7 11.1%
  • Other

    Votes: 3 4.8%
Back
Top