Kessil Lights: Why is everyone selling them?

[yourracer]

Hello everyone, So I been seeing a lot of people selling their Kessil and I recently order some. Are you guys please with the Kessil 360 lighting for the corals?

 

[brett_schn]

They probably got an ap700 a radion or went back to t5s/mh or needed the money/getting out of the hobby. The kessil a360 are the only lights along with the ap700 that my fish store uses

 

[Fritzhamer]

Cant speak for everyone else but I LOVED how they looked. They are very close to what snorkeling looks like in my opinion. I keep some sps and just got tons of shading with the kessils. I also didn't know that turning up the whites turns down the overall par. I noticed a lot of things stretching for the light and thought 100/100 was max par. 100 intensity and blue is the most par. I couldn't keep zoas alive and overall things weren't doing well.

To achieve what I wanted from the kessils, it would have taken several more fixtures on my tank. For the money I wasn't ready to go that route. I considered going back to mh but opted for dimmable T5.

 

[Mal11224]

I have two A160 lights and I like them a lot. I considered a t5 when I started but liked the overall look of the lights. Small footprint, uses less power and they are effective. I think people as well as myself struggle with tuning the lights to be effective and safe for the reef creatures. The shimmer they produce is awesome as well. I have a mixed reef tank and I see good growth on all corals with these lights. There are people who use them and have excellent growth. Just have to figure out how they can work best for what you have. I use mynapex to control mine and so far they are great. I have more soft/LPS corals than SPS and all seems well. Good luck with your tank. R2R is a great place for you to be.

 

[yourracer]

Thanks everyone for your reply. This will give everyone an idea of what the Kessil can do for this hobby and maybe if Kessil sees this can improve on what the customer needs. Happy reefing!!

 

[minus9]

I have three 160's on my 22g and I just bought two AP700's for my 90g shallow that I'm putting together now. There's absolutely nothing wrong with these lights, but I find that people tend to "play" around with settings and that's where everything goes wrong. LED's are a different beast when it comes to reef lighting. I think Kessil removed the "tinkering" aspect with these lights by giving you the spectrum that corals need and you just set the color to your liking (visually) and intensity is based on the coral's demand, sps, lps, softies, etc...
Yes, there are shading issues with single point light sources, but those can be addressed by adding more fixtures, supplementing w/T5's or placing corals between fixtures. Also, shading happens in nature, but in our glass boxes, the conditions aren't always optimal, which causes other issues.
After having these lights for over 2 years, I've concluded that color settings under 50% work best (in my tank) and the PUR % goes up the more blue the lights are set.
The last factor is intensity, people set it based on visual brightness, which never works out in their favor. Start low and slowly, very slowly turn up intensity, only a couple percent a month. Anything faster than that will result in shock and then it's a long recovery or white-out.
Don't fear, Kessil's are great lights, but with anything, you have to understand how they work in order to be successful. Just because someone has MH's, doesn't mean they're going to be successful at keeping corals. Which brings up another point, we keep water, not corals.
Sorry for the long rant, but I constantly read users bash a product without either owning it or blame it for their misunderstanding or misuse of the product.
Okay, that's all for me.

 

[Frop]

Maybe it's because they're more popular more are being sold. I mean if 20% use that and say 5% use another light then 4x more Kessils may be sold.

I guess the real question is what percent of Kessil users sell their lights in comparison to other lights.

 

[hart24601]

IMO it's because of shading and lack of power with sps. Sure you can use more but it's $$$ and some acros really color differently in high par which isn't kessil strong suit.

They are nice lights for many applications like softies/lps (chalices are amazing with kessil) and supplemental light but the hobby is sps crazy right now.

 

[minus9]

Here's my 22g full of sps. I'm only hitting 60% intensity during peak hours. PAR isn't the only parameter of concern with lighting.
In fact, it's often misleading when it comes to LED's. These lights have plenty of power. I'm not sure why they get classified as being weak by certain people?
Anyway, I wouldn't be concerned about people selling them, there are plenty of reasons why hobbyist sell equipment, as mentioned above.
Please excuse my crappy iPhone pic, it's not as blue in person as it is in this pic.

 

[hart24601]

I have had them, I still consider them weak, but happy you enjoy them. A very nice tank, and for 22g I would assume they are plenty powerful. What are the dimensions of that 22g?

I have found I like for my acros to be in 300 par of led light minimum, with 500 producing more color changes. That number is what I have personally found experimenting with kessils, Chinese BB, radions and AI. Kessils have a hard time hitting that number at the depth I put my acros. A160 puts out 40w, it's nice light but Aka weak. However here is where I like my other kessils:

 

[LBReefer]

I have had them, I still consider them weak, but happy you enjoy them. A very nice tank, and for 22g I would assume they are plenty powerful. What are the dimensions of that 22g?

I have found I like for my acros to be in 300 par of led light minimum, with 500 producing more color changes. That number is what I have personally found experimenting with kessils, Chinese BB, radions and AI. Kessils have a hard time hitting that number at the depth I put my acros. A160 puts out 40w, it's nice light but Aka weak. However here is where I like my other kessils:

Those look like a80s not 360s ...

 

[hart24601]

On the discus?

Close but no cigar!

A160 amazon sun. Same wattage as the tuna blues. A360 put out 90w at full power. Radion G4 pro 190w. The radion 15's put out 95w

Here is the PAR map of my 120.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

I liked my 160s, but changed to an 80 shallow rimless and lost my supplemental t5s from the 90. Rather than step to the 360s I switched over to the SB Reeflight and couldn't be happier. Lots of new colors starting to show their face. Not that the kessils weren't beautiful, they were just a bit underpowered for my need. The 160s that is.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

Corals in my 80 after the transfer before switching to the SB, but after removing the t5s. (They were lit by 2 kessil 160s and 4 ati t5s) Everything looks to be doing well, but you can see the sps in the first pic starting to brown out

 

[yourracer]

Thanks again everyone for replying. So it sounds like this light is only perfect for small systems but anything bigger than 30g will require more than one Kessil. I see why people are selling them. For SPS people and bigger tank will require more to cover the shades spot which is a waste of money and not cheap.

 

[Ranjib]

I use an A360w on my BioCube 29G, and two A80s for two of my pico tanks, I am very happy with them.

 

[Ranjib]

I have seen multiple 120G+ tanks powered by 700s , theres a BRS video also, saying good things about kessil, with PAR values compared to other lighting, they dont drop like most other LED lights, the only weakness i can recall was lack of ambient light (thus more shadow) compared to T5s.

 

[yourracer]

On the discus?

Close but no cigar!

A160 amazon sun. Same wattage as the tuna blues. A360 put out 90w at full power. Radion G4 pro 190w. The radion 15's put out 95w

Here is the PAR map of my 120.

Miss this photo. On the PAR map which number is which for each light? Thanks

 

[Confuse]

I think part of the problem is how Kessil initially promoted these lights. Many people were enticed by the 48" coverage by one fixture. But the reality is that you need more than one light to achieve adequate/higher PAR on a tank that size to grow light demanding SPS. The fixtures are quite pricey too, so it's hard to swallow the thought of buying another fixture for almost $900. So while hanging your lights high and getting good coverage may be great, that greatly reduces PAR and limits what you can grow from an SPS standpoint.

I have two AP 700's running on a 48x30x24 tank hanging about 10" above the tank. Not everyone wants to spend that much money adequately lighting their tank. Heck, I admit I went overboard, but I really like the natural look of Kessils.

 

[yourracer]

I think part of the problem is how Kessil initially promoted these lights. Many people were enticed by the 48" coverage by one fixture. But the reality is that you need more than one light to achieve adequate/higher PAR on a tank that size to grow light demanding SPS. The fixtures are quite pricey too, so it's hard to swallow the thought of buying another fixture for almost $900. So while hanging your lights high and getting good coverage may be great, that greatly reduces PAR and limits what you can grow from an SPS standpoint.

I have two AP 700's running on a 48x30x24 tank hanging about 10" above the tank. Not everyone wants to spend that much money adequately lighting their tank. Heck, I admit I went overboard, but I really like the natural look of Kessils.

Yes true that. Customer paying for that much money should have more LEDs on that fixture. But they was thinking of the controller part more I guess.