Kessil H380 Grow Light is Crazy Good!

RobertP · Mar 14, 2017

I read a few reviews on BRS sight and here about this light and everything I read was great except the price. Yeah was not overly thrilled about paying that to grow chaeto. However, I took the plunge and WOW am I glad I did. In the first week the chaeto doubled in size and filled my fuge. I left it there another week and it became this thick mat. Pulled 3/4 of it out yesterday and am amazed at how thick it was. When I spread out the remaining quarter of the chaeto it is now about the size when I first got the light 2 weeks ago. I really don't think I am exaggerating....this light is just that good. Beats the heck out of the clip-on light with the led grow bulb I had on it previously. I have it on a 12 hour schedule opposite the tank lights.

Gets me to thinking if chaeto responds this well to a great light, what will my corals do if I go from a 4 bulb T5 to a couple Radion G4 lights!

dbl · Mar 14, 2017

I too use a Kessil on my fuge and echo your findings. Chaeto grows so quickly I can't even give it away!

Scorpius · Mar 14, 2017

I use a high power LED flood light from Menards. I've had my skimmer off the past five days due to a treatment I'm running and my Chaeto has taken off like crazy which it hasn't done in months.

Chris Jakubowski · Aug 31, 2017

Did any of you experience your chaeto turning white? Mine doesnt tumble in my sump due to its setup, strands which where closest to the light turned bleached white. I also had the unit on 24/7

Fritzhamer · Aug 31, 2017

Mine was doing this and I though it was great. I run two really high powered grow lights like one would use in a grow house in Colorado. Cheato was growing at roughly a gallon bag's worth every two weeks. I have since found that mine gets really brittle once it turns white and pieces break off and end up in my display where they turn dark green again. I've cut the light back to just one grow light and its growing dark green and about as fast. I've also started feeding more.

Chris Jakubowski · Sep 1, 2017

Fritzhamer said:
Mine was doing this and I though it was great. I run two really high powered grow lights like one would use in a grow house in Colorado. Cheato was growing at roughly a gallon bag's worth every two weeks. I have since found that mine gets really brittle once it turns white and pieces break off and end up in my display where they turn dark green again. I've cut the light back to just one grow light and its growing dark green and about as fast. I've also started feeding more.

When mine turns white its not brittle, its more like very soft sloppy spaghetti which would disintegrate on touch, if you where to see it you would think its as dead as a doornail, once I switched back to to t5 lighting and lazily left the bleached dead white cheato in amazingly enough a week later it had turned green again

This light is too powerful to be used close-up, run it in a spare tank now just on its own with a rotating ball and it still doesn't seem to grow, if I switch it back to T5 lighting i get a good growth from it, its right to set it to GROW and not to BLOOM right?

I had a failed ATO when i went on holiday and some cheato that was in my sump dried up on a rock, must've been out of the water 5 days and had gone dry and shrivelled, not bothering to remove it after i filled the sump a few weeks later that same piece was back to life again, amazing how resilient it is!

Newb73 · Sep 3, 2017

Bloom is more magenta like the H350 version.

They also have a Blue version vs the H380 being controllable through Several spectrums.

Grow gives you both blue and red.

I am actually mixing an H350 magenta with an H80 set to blue (the combination of blue and magenta should = a 380 on grow, but with with 105 watts instead of 90 for about the same money.). Also I have a 4watt 6500k shooting at it from the side.

hart24601 · Sep 5, 2017

I have been very happy with my h380 and the chaeto has been amazing. I don't have much room for light mounting so I really don't think there is another option out there on the market that can do what this light can, of course not saying there are not less expensive options, but not with the mount flexibility.

However you can pretty easily burn the chaeto if you don't mount it high enough or don't have a lot of flow. I don't think it's over illumination, but just the heat the light puts out. I don't have my chaeto tumbling and it's been fine, but I did need to move the light a bit higher, when I 1st got the light I had it mounted maybe 8" off the top of the chaeto, I could feel how hot the algae got and then it turned white and died. Since moving it up higher it has been amazing.

Newb73 · Sep 5, 2017

See below

Newb73 · Sep 5, 2017

Newb73 said:
I am going to play devils advocate and point out there isn't too much difference between an H350 magenta which is $200 in Amazon and the H380 except in the blue spectrum.

I am running an H350 along side an H80 as an experiment and I can dial in the extra blue, only with two lights sources instead of using a single fixture, with 105watts instead of 90watts, for about the same price as a 380.

Attached

WesleyC · Sep 5, 2017

Good to know that the H350 and H380 are not that much different. As of right now, Kessil H350 is selling for over $320 in Amazon while the H380 is $299 though.

hart24601 · Sep 5, 2017

Realistically I bet the H350 is close enough there isn't a real practical difference in our tanks. As you know the main benefit is for terrestrial growers so they can have bloom and grow light in one. If I knew there was a h350 I very well might have gotten it over the h380 if it's really that much less money.

kilgoretrout · Sep 5, 2017

I love mine, but the first time I used it I ran it for 12 hours and the top layer of all my algae was killed. It has a ton of power. I love it.

WesleyC · Sep 5, 2017

I was testing out the H380 when I first got it. It gave me this much phytoplankton in just 4 days. It was seeded with just by washing the dish that had phyto on it.

Merv49 · Sep 5, 2017

dbl said:
I too use a Kessil on my fuge and echo your findings. Chaeto grows so quickly I can't even give it away!

I had so much in my fudge that I thinned it out and got $30.00 store credit for it at my LFS. The light is making me money.

jeffrey holloway · Sep 5, 2017

I use Kessils in my sump also, they do grow algae as advertised. I also prefer Kessils as my main lights in my Display Tank.

dangros · Sep 5, 2017

I use a kessil 360we for my fuge light and have also seen a huge improvement in growth. I would love to compare that to an h380 to see if there's any difference.

Newb73 · Sep 6, 2017

WesleyC said:
Good to know that the H350 and H380 are not that much different. As of right now, Kessil H350 is selling for over $320 in Amazon while the H380 is $299 though.

So weird...i just bought mine for $210.

I bought an H80 flora and am running it in mostly blue along side. The whole kit cost me $380 with mounts. An H380 flora would have been about $330 with mount.

I figured....15 extra watts and 2 points of light instead of 1......why not?

.

Newb73 · Sep 6, 2017

Newb73 said:
So weird...i just bought mine for $210.

I bought an H380 and am running it in mostly blue along side. The whole kit cost me $380 with mounts.

Perhaps they had it marked wrong. I thought it was cheap because it's being discontinued and once i saw the spectrum comparisons I snatched it up for that price.