Kessil LEDs, Intensity and PAR

[divetoday]

I am admittedly new to the whole question of measuring PAR. I have a 150 (36" tall) tank with three Kessil 360's on it that I bought used. I was told that the Kessil's would be "good for any type of coral that (I) want to keep."

I have made the usual beginner mistakes with over-feeding, working to get nutrients and other factors stable, coral predation by fish and just understanding the chemistry involved. Two years in, I have had okay luck with LPS, but struggled with SPS.

That was when I thought to check my PAR on my lights just to see where I stand. I purchased and have been running the PAR monitoring module for APEX for several weeks now. I have had the sensor placed at a depth of 8" and the light is 5" above the water. As you can see from the images, the most PAR I get is around 70.

When I first set up the lights, Kessil recommended an intensity and color graph which I have followed. A screen shot is attached.

Should I be ramping up the light more to gain the 250+ PAR that everyone seems to recommend for SPS? Any suggestions would be great. Also, any information about using the APEX PAR module would be appreciated. It seems a little bit odd that it is supposed to be plug and play with no calibration?

Thanks reefers!

 

[Bj’s Reef]

I’m of no help to you. However I’m going to tag along to see what I can learn.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

IMO , you want to average 100 par on the sand for a mixed reef , and 200 for an acro dominant tank.

Then , see where you are up top.
You likely want to hit about 300 par where most of the acros are.

Now it is possible that the tiny frag at 300 grows great then grows another foot taller into the 400-700 par levels. Don’t sweat it. Itwill happen. (Thus the problem with chasing par.)my zoas and Xenia never seemed to mind the 700+ On my overflow.

Here’s the trick though , each tank is slightly different and depending on alk nutrients etc , finding the sweet spot takes time and patience. By either slowly increasing (decreasing ) the par over week or months , to see what works best.
Many folks will have the same appearant coral with vastly different. Par levels.

Having the sensor in one spot is tricky as who knows how the light and hot spots are laid out in the tank.
Once you have scanned the sand bed and various levels in the tank(and spots on the rock w coral ) , i see no reason to keep the meter in the tank with leds save when you are making the adjustments for the sweet spot over time.

 

[22bfan]

I've noticed across generally can't handle high oar in ultra low/zero nutrient tanks where nitrates are at 0. If your nitrates are 0 I wouldn't try to run much more than 300 par where your across sit.

My acros get between 480-580 par from my metal halide and AI Hydras for about 5 hours and 180 par from just blue channels for 3 hours before and after the halide is on. I try to keep nitrates between 5-10 but when busy traveling for work levels can get up to 25. However the only time I see issues is when phosphate climbs and I start to get algae growth with.

I don't think I've ever seen any Kessels put out enough light energy to reach higher than 300 par mid tank in a 26" deep. Beautiful color blend from those lights but I haven't seen them able to get bright.

 

[Dana Riddle]

Which model 360 (W, X, etc?) Those PAR values are much too low - I don't think they're correct.

 

[ikolbaba06]

I have both 360we and ap700’s and the 360’s do not put out a huge amount of par even at 100% intensity. I use mq510 apogee meter and my ap700’s blow the 360’s out of the water plus spread is much better.

 

[Bradley Keck]

I'm curious about your lighting schedule that was recommended by Kessil. Your lights are only off for one hour and then running at 10% INT and 0% CLR for 12 hours? Am I reading that correctly? Was that supposed to be for acclimation or for a growing schedule?

 

[Bradley Keck]

I went back and read your post again, and it sounds like they recommended that schedule when you were first starting them which maybe similar to their acclimation mode. I would guess(any help here with more seasoned reefers) that should be run for 1-4weeks and then a schedule with gradually higher intensities for longer periods can be started. I too have 3 kessils across my 5x2x2 with two 2x54w t5's on either side of them. I run a quick set up through the spectral controller with 0%CLR/20%INT x 1hour, 20%CLR/30%INT x one hour, 40%CLR/40%INT x 6 hours, 20%CLR/30% x 1 hour, 0%CLR/20%INT x 2hours, then lights off. My tank is 24in tall and kessils are 11in from water surface. I do not have a par meter, but cannot imagine I am only getting 5 par down low in my tank. I have a red monticap placed 8in. from the sand bed that has encrusted onto the rock and is growing after being in for 4 weeks. Some of that could be the T-5's I run for 6 hours, but I have to think I am getting more PAR from my Kessils too. It appears that one spike to 70PAR is when the lights are at 60%INT? That would mean at 13in from light to PAR meter only 70PAR at 60%INT. That seems way low even for Kessil 360's. How long is your tank( I read the 36in depth, is it 4ft long?), how far apart are the 360's, and wear is the meter placed in relation to each light? You have me wanting to post another question while we are on the topic of Kessils too

 

[divetoday]

@bradleykleck Thanks for the feedback. The tank is 72” long and I don’t have the T5s but am thinking about adding them

@danariddle they were bought used but I believe they are the 360we

@ikolbaba06 and others Thanks for the info. Gonna look further into calibration questions.

 

[Bradley Keck]

@bradleykleck Thanks for the feedback. The tank is 72” long and I don’t have the T5s but am thinking about adding them

@danariddle they were bought used but I believe they are the 360we

@ikolbaba06 and others Thanks for the info. Gonna look further into calibration questions.

If your tank is 36in tall and 72in long, it may be more than 150g unless the depth is really short. When I watched the BRS videos on the Kessil A360's, I know that distance b/t the pucks and mount height can make a big difference in the "PAR spread" if you will. Depending on whether you measure directly under the center of a light versus in an area where they overlap could give a higher or lower number. If I had a PAR meter, what I would do is create a map of PAR readings at different depths and lengths of the tank. If the lights are all working correctly, you will get some higher PAR readings directly under each Puck. As far as the T-5's go, I am just getting started with my light set-up and have 13 frags right now. I have 3 Monti's and one birds nest that have been in there for 3 weeks now. They are all doing well and with my kessils running at no more than 40%, I have to attribute some of the growth I am already seeing to the T5's. I am working on a mixed reef that will have about 1/3 softies, 1/3 LPS, and 1/3 SPS, so I think my lighting will suffice. If you are planning an SPS dominant system, Either more kessils and/or T5's would be highly recommended in that 72in long 36in tall tank. I do not have another reef tank to compare to, but I have been very happy with how the T5/kessil combination looks. Good luck with your system!

 

[divetoday]

Traded some emails with Neptune support. They pointed out that the minimum value in my probe settings was -45. They had me reset the value to 0 and test the PAR in total darkness, which gave a reading of six.

Next step was to change the minimum value to -6 and retest again. The highest reading I got was 190 at 100% intensity 14” from the puck, 11” underwater. Readings on the sand bed were just over 100.

Gonna follow directions and raise my intensity VERY gradually and see what happens.

 

[reefwiser]

Having tested par on many 36' tanks thru the years 360 Kessil's will not give you good par at that depth. Especially if you are wanting to keep SPS. You will need to use t 5's and I would be looking at MH and T5's if it was my tank at that depth. 36' deep tanks are not good Reef tanks due to the lighting required to do theme well and successfully.

 

[Dana Riddle]

Just completed testing of a 360W - thanks @madweazl! Intensity at 100%, color at 60% will produce the most PAR. Light was 6" off the water. Investigated the effect of shimmer - the second graph shows maximum light intensity with shimmer. Of course it also drops drastically, something the graph doesn't show. The dip in PAR at lower left is due to an overflow.

 

[oreo54]

Hmmm... Kessil "logic" dictates PAR should stay the same (or within a margin of error) at 100% intensity and regardless of "color" setting...
Not accounting for any "out of range" "colors" (<400..>700) and an accurate across the spectrum PAR meter..

Soo I'm curious as to how much of a difference w/ "color" at 100%

 

[madweazl]

Hmmm... Kessil "logic" dictates PAR should stay the same (or within a margin of error) at 100% intensity and regardless of "color" setting...
Not accounting for any "out of range" "colors" (<400..>700) and an accurate across the spectrum PAR meter..

Soo I'm curious as to how much of a difference w/ "color" at 100%

This is the only claim I've seen from Kessil:

Kessil Logic™ maintains consistent output across the spectrum. 10,000K to Actinic.

 

[madweazl]

@Dana Riddle, just wanted to point out this was an A360WE (slightly higher output than the W they replaced a while back).

 

[Dana Riddle]

Hmmm... Kessil "logic" dictates PAR should stay the same (or within a margin of error) at 100% intensity and regardless of "color" setting...
Not accounting for any "out of range" "colors" (<400..>700) and an accurate across the spectrum PAR meter..

Soo I'm curious as to how much of a difference w/ "color" at 100%

I initially checked PPFD and saw a drop beyond 60% on the Color dial (and Intensity at 100%.) This was a quick test and I thought it was possibly an error due to positioning. A second test (using jigs to hold everything in place) confirmed the initial results. Wattage shows differences at various settings as well, so I don't think it's largely due to PAR sensor response.

 

[Dana Riddle]

@Dana Riddle, just wanted to point out this was an A360WE (slightly higher output than the W they replaced a while back).

Yes, thank you. You are correct!

 

[Bradley Keck]

@Dana Riddle, I want to make sure I'm reading this graph correctly. Is the 0,0 point on the X and Z axis the center of the Kessil puck? This is just awesome work you guys are doing. This can be so helpful! This might explain why a lot of my softies and LPS polyps start to retract around 7:00 when I go down to 20% color and 30% intensity. They probably think it's night time. I have noticed my trumpet will start to show sweeper tentacles @ 8:00 when the light is at 0 color and 20% intensity too. Thank you for your work!

 

[Bradley Keck]

OK, I just studied the graph again. It's the 10in mark that is the center of the light right? Also, I would say to the OP, that Reefwiser(love that name) is right that you won't get enough light intensity down low in that tank, but you can compensate for that with your aquascape. SPS will have to be up high and more towards the center of each puck. You would need to build up your aquascape considerably in the vertical direction. That could make for a neat aquascape! Then you would want some low light corals down lower. You can make it work with what you have, but you should supplement those Kessils with 2x80w T5's on either side.