Kessil Lights: Why is everyone selling them?

[ifarmer]

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.

Cant see anything in your tank except those red coral. Everything else either look blue or black to me

 

[minus9]

Cant see anything in your tank except those red coral. Everything else either look blue or black to me

Like I said, crappy iPhone pic.

 

[hart24601]

Kessil are great lights, but like most things in the hobby just have to be aware of trade offs.

One thing that I absolutely loved was when they came out they had near UV and violet which no other commercial fixtures had. The past several years other places started offering that spectrum and thankfully it's now standard on just about every LED system.

 

[Todd31]

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.

100%. Had an AP700 on a 4 ft tank and switched to T5 for the above reason.

 

[ifarmer]

Cool thing about Kessil that other light can't is that. It allows people to mount the kessil up on the ceiling (inside the ceiling) as a recessed light and people would not even know it's there. Good for fish, coral and human and the house

 

[Bob Escher]

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.

You have three 160's on 22 gallon tank? Excuse me but Damm

 

[skim]

The first thing in the Reef Hobby is if you are not ready to spend money then I highly recommend some other Hobby or stick to Fresh Water fish and I do not mean that in a negative way it's just the truth. I bet if you ask the average Reef Hobbyist what they have spent it would be $5000.00 and up based on say 90 gal with sump skimmers ( notice I say skimmers ) RO/DI units, Pumps and all that is needed to get water in the Tank. Then add Life to it and ya $5000.00 plus and I believe I am on the low side, oh ya lets not forget about the Quarantine Tank. There are many that could have put a hefty down payment on a home. My point is if you are not ready to drop $1000.00 to $3000.00 on lighting for a 4 ft. plus Aquarium which is the single most important piece of equipment you will buy, then 1 of 3 things, Stick to Fresh Water, Stay to 24" to 30" cube Aquarium, or just pass on the Reef Hobby as you will just become frustrated and give up or spend even more money and end up with what you should have bought in the first place. I just get frustrated when I hear guys say "it's not that bad," before anyone of us utter these words, sit back and think of all the stuff you have sitting in boxes or on a shelf in the Garage and all the Corals and Fish and Inverts lost or equipment breakdown.

About Kessil Lighting

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.

You are not correct with the PAR info. PAR will be at its highest at 100% and 100% setting which is 10K with Kessils. Kessils start at 10K and go down to 20+K so when you use a PAR meter with them you're not getting a correct reading as PAR reads the Visible spectrum so if you have higher light blue, green and yellow and orange PAR will read higher. PAR meter reads about 98% of what we see and so with Kessils starting point already heavily reduced in the orange, yellow and green they have the appearance
of being lower intensity. The value that is more important would be PUR ( Usable Radiating/Radiation ) which is where Kessil had put most of their focus on when designing them. Look at it this way. When you put something in the Microwave and start it can you see anything? But after 3 to 5 min. you have your Popcorn and if it was not for that wonderful screen in the door window you would be pretty much dead and quickly too. So you put 100% Intensity at 0 color over your Zoa's and couldn't keep them alive, you were cooking them. Zoa's do not require intense lighting you could probably get away with regular Fluorescents. That is one of the big reasons Zoa's became so popular, coloring and not needing intense lighting. Things stretching to the light at 100 and 100 well ya somethings love lots of light but I bet if you left it at that level for 8 to 10 hours you would see those same pieces retracted and hidden. Most Corals within a hour to two after Sunrise have reached their threshold point of energy need for themselves and spend the rest of the daylight hours fighting off the Light. Believe it or not at one time everyone was throwing Zoa' in the Garbage because they were considered a nuisance, everyone wanted Acro's and Reef building stony corals. You could go back to MH and T5's but you use more electricity and have to change bulbs every 8 months to a year, LED should last 10 plus years with no changes and say $400.00 a year for bulbs over 10 years $4000.00 plus higher electricity usage, I think that $1000 to $1500 LED lighting investment may have just paid for itself.

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:

Most people don't realise that Aquarium plants require pretty much the same intensity as Corals. I assume those are real and not plastic. Those ones on either side on the tank I believe are Anubias and they would be like Zoa's, I believe the one with the leaves going to the top is a Green Tiger Lilly, they require some good lighting to get the leaves growing from the Bulb and make their way up to the surface for even more intensity, I believe the one in the back right would be a Amazon Sword, they do require some intense lighting to keep them healthy along with some Iron and anything that has Red or Purple in the leaves require the same, so in how well your plants are doing it is hard to believe they would not grow and sustain Corals. Plants will respond much faster to changes in lighting then Corals so they are a little easier to tell if they require more or less. I wish Corals were more like Plants in that they would Pearl ( O2 bubbles from leaves when happy ) but they too can get too much and can not expel O2 quick enough and burn and die. Corals same thing, some look at a Coral and see it expelling brown mucus, and say coll my Coral is pooping, no it is most likely expelling its Algae because it is literally burning up inside from too much O2 being produced from too intense lighting. That is why Kessil also says 1 to 2 week acclimation time, at a lower setting and leave it for the that time and see what is going on. I fried some Acros that looked happy because I was not patient enough and increased intensity too quickly. Everything looked good until the third day and can down to three pieces that were 75% bleached, and all parameters where fine no ALK sipke just too much too fast. Anyhow sorry for the long winded post.
This is a great Video to watch for those interested.

 

[minus9]

You have three 160's on 22 gallon tank? Excuse me but Damm

Yeah, the tank has become a frankenstein science experiment gone wrong, but in a good way. I also have T5's as well. This seems unnecessary to some, but I have corals covering/shading other corals and with such a small footprint, I need to spread the light around until my 90g is ready.
Dana's speech is great! I think a lot of people were surprised by what he said, but I see this happening in my tank. I get pretty good growth, but when I started to increase the flow in my tank, everything started to take off even more, especially when combined with adding more alk during peak lighting hours.

 

[BlennyKravitz]

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.

I have had AP700s since before they ironed out the app and I love them. I'm also into cars and home theaters, so think of the AP700 as an 800hp rear drive car or 2000W of power for your speakers. You have to be careful how you use it or you'll kill everything, but having extra reserve power is always better than pushing something to its limits.

After 18 months, I'm finally up at 65% and my acros are loving life.

 

[|sCRIBe|]

I also have an ap700 over a cad lights 70 and it's at 40% power. Everything is doing great and looks great. Slowly raising 1% every few days

 

[Kyl]

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.

The Ap700 release was a borderline train-wreck, especially when you consider that it took 15 months for a retail firmware release to fix all of the nagging issues some people were having. Would still rather have apex functionality at this point, the phone app is still clumsy.

 

[|sCRIBe|]

I've had my ap700 for about 5 months and beta tested the phone app which right now works great and it's a full release version. Also kessil uses the dense matrix led to cram a lot of them into a tight space. That video above brings up a couple good points. 100-200 par is good for sps. More par will bring out more color but slow growth

 

[bif24701]

I have two Kessil AP700s on my 180. Of all the lights I have sampled Kessils create a better looking display. Love them.

 

[ReefBeta]

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.

This! Kessil A360W is the same level as Radion XR15w G4 Pro, both in power and in price. But Kessil simply put coverage as 24", while Radion put 24" as max coverage and 18" as recommended for SPS. If you use them to cover the full width of 24" for SPS, you will be disappointed. You do need to consider its coverage 18" or less and plan out multiple lights for coverage. They are not worse than Radion, but they are not cheaper either.

 

[Jose Moreno]

Coverage and shading is the weakness of leds. The cost of buying enough led fixtures to cover a decent sized tank is immense. Even with the cost of running t5s included; youd still have to update your leds every few years as new models come out and make older models obsolete. Itd cost me over 1000.00 every year to replace and keep up with the led models.

The programmability of leds is great. But having three fixtures for a 40 gallon tank is just impractical, expensive, and looks ridiculous, imho.

One T5 unit does the job for me. Provides all spectrums and covers every inch of the tank. Tried and true technology, proven to work.

 

[ReefBeta]

Coverage and shading is the weakness of leds. The cost of buying enough led fixtures to cover a decent sized tank is immense. Even with the cost of running t5s included; youd still have to update your leds every few years as new models come out and make older models obsolete. Itd cost me over 1000.00 every year to replace and keep up with the led models.

No, you don't NEED to replace your LEDs every few years. You may want to, but you definitely don't have to. It's not like T5, if you use the same bulb for 2 years, your coral will die. If you use the same LED for 5 years, if it's good in 1st year, it will as be good in 5th year. People are still running Radion Gen 2 to this day.

 

[bif24701]

As for PAR, AP700s can and will produce PAR at least equal to or more than a 250 watt MH. Head to head with the G4 the AP700 where about equal on PAR @18" down expect that the Kessil had far more spread that well exceeded the 30x30" test tank in BRS videos.

Though those numbers are flawed due to the problem they discovered with the LiCor meter the number are comparable to each other in BRS tests before the discovery of the problem

 

[Fritzhamer]

I stand corrected, I meant PUR goes down when you add white but PAR goes up. In any event my point is very well documented. I believe it was briefly even mentioned on BRS TV investigates. With Kessil the blue never goes away, it just adds white. It does this because that's where the punch of these lights is (blue spectrum). When you add white though you difuse and lesson some of the effectiveness of the blues which drops overall effectiveness.

All the stores by me run Kessils but they've all added T5. When Kessil makes an AP700 with built in T5s I'll be in. As for expensive, I've seen some nice tanks with cheap LEDs.

Kessils shimmer does The best at reproducing the look of metal halide.

 

[Karie]

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.

I love my Kessils (A360) but I do keep them on my smaller tanks (50g). My larger tank(100g) has radions. Usually people eventually upgrade in tank size, so maybe they go for larger light fixtures too and need to get rid of smaller ones. And Kessil did recently come out with a larger fixture.
But again, I LOVE my Kessils.

 

[yourracer]

This is really good info everyone keep it coming. But I think the mean issue is for SPS tanks is shading. For AP700 cost almost 1000 should be able to cover the shades spot.