Reefi Uno Vs Kessil a360x

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Kessils are each centered over a 2’ x 2’ area of tank and the reef brite is at the front of the tank and is angled towards the back of the tank. Kessils are 8” above the water. Reef brite is 4” above the water.
Awesome! This is the exact data for which I was searching. Do you notice much shadowing? Not sure how often you use the Kessils without the Reef Brites (if ever).
 

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I've ran both lights and can give you my take on them. I ran a single A360X over a 20gal long for several months before switching it out to a single Reefi Uno.

I started with the Kessil. It was a great light and it was my first "big boy" light. At first I didn't purchase the controller, and once I did, I realized how much I was missing. The colors were great and it produced plenty of par for my SPS corals. It was powerful enough for me to question why so many people said it wasn't a good light for SPS. Until my SPS corals began to grow out. Shadowing quickly became apparent and an issue I knew I'd need to deal with soon. So I bought two ReefBreeder lumen bars to supplement. I really liked this combo as the colors were stunning and the shadowing was no longer an issue. I would have continued to use this combo on the tank, but I was looking to upgrade to a much larger and deeper tank. I knew the Kessil wouldn't scale up and keep high par numbers without a lot of supplementation. So I began looking for a more budget friendly option.

Que the release of the Reefi Uno. Double the power, built in controller, anti glare lense, all for $100 less than the kessil without a controller. I decided to give it a shot and see if I liked it, if I didn't I would just switch back. Setup for me was a bit troublesome, but it was completely on my end and had nothing to do with the software or hardware from Reefi. I ran into an issue where my Router's WiFi just didn't like to connect to the light. I messaged Daniel a few times and he was great about trouble shooting with me and responded very quickly. Once I logged into the light directly through my phone or computer and not over WiFi, I had zero issues with connecting. Basically the difference between the methods of control is being able to control the light from anywhere via having it connected to WiFi vs only at home by logging into it directly. I really couldn't care less about logging into the light while I'm away from home and struggle to find ANY situation where that's really needed so not a big loss for me at all. I believe my issue stems from modification I've made to my IP address settings and router settings for running gaming servers. Again, I feel and believe in no way that this issue was caused by anything ReeFi related and if you were to try connecting through your own person WiFi that you'd have zero issues. Just keep in mind that the light, like most tech in this industry, needs to be connected to a 2.4GHz WiFi signal and NOT a 5GHz signal.

Once that was sorted, programing was just as easy as the Kessil, and I LOVE the option for acclimation programing. Something that should be included with every light on the market. The color variance on this light is CRAZY. You truly can tune it to your taste. This light is also a par monster. at 55w of power I'm seeing 300 par on the sand bed 12" below the water's surface with the light hung 11 inches above the water. The spread is very slightly less than the Kessil which is to be expected with the Kessil's optics. Something that still impresses me to this day though, is the lenses on the Uno. In order to get any glare from the light, I basically have to look straight up at the lights. Where with the Kessil I had a constant glare from the lense. For that alone, I'd pick the Uno over the A360X as it makes looking at the tank so much more pleasant. I still have a good amount of shimmer, which for me is a welcome change. The kessil would give me headaches from time to tiem with the amount of shimmer it produced. My biggest worry about the Uno was disco effect due to the individual lenses on each LED vs the Kessil's single lense. I was super happy to see ZERO dicso effect or signs of individual colors in the shimmer lines. It's very well blended. Shadowing was better than the Kessil, however, I still felt that/saw the benefit of the LED bars as supplement. Oh, I should mention that I was also very happy with the build quality of the Reefi Uno.

Overall I'm very happy with the Uno and will be using them over my new tank. In this journey I have learned a few things that I'd like to share for your consideration though.


#1 I would certainly continue to use single point lights in the future, as I already plan to. HOWEVER, I would not ever plan on ONLY ever using single point lights. I 100% think they need to be used in conjunction with supplemental lighting such as T5's or LED bars.

#2 Single point lights do not offer enough coverage a cost effective price point. They just don't. Buying extra lights to get more coverage is a great way to spend the same amount of money as just buying panel lights in the first place.

#3 Single point lights ARE a great value when paired with supplemental lighting such as T5's or LED bars. Especially single used Hybrid T5 fixtures can be found for very cheap, and LED bars are a wonderful coverage/$ option as well.

My new tank is 48"x24"x16" and I will be using a combination of Reefi Uno's and Reefbright strips to light it. My personal build is a bit different as my tank will be a good mix of corals. So I'm using 4 reefbright strips and a single Uno for now. The Reefbrights are producing enough par that I'm growing all my LPS corals with no issue. The Uno will be used over the section with SPS to increase the PAR.

So that leads to what I suggest for you. Two Reefi Uno's and Two Orphek or ReefBright LED bars for additional coverage. Honestly, if you wanted to go with the Kessils, this is what I would also suggest, but I would go with the Uno's over the kessils all day long. This will be FAR more cost efficient than four single point lights with MUCH better spread and way less shadowing. You will still have PLENTY of par especially with the Reefi Uno's to the point where you'll still need to turn them down for SPS. Unless you've got a tank deeper than 30" in which case an argument can then be made for a light much more powerful than 180watts.
 

hart24601

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I personally would go for the uno no doubt. The pc amber and lime leds give amazing color rendition that almost all commercial fixtures are just now catching up on. Plus their 3 year warranty and cooling systems are just a step above. I would still consider adding orphek bars down the road as colonies grow but you will have a good while for that.
 

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Awesome! This is the exact data for which I was searching. Do you notice much shadowing? Not sure how often you use the Kessils without the Reef Brites (if ever).
I don’t notice much shadowing but the kessils are not on by themselves for very long. They ramp up over 3 hours starting at 7:00AM. The reefbrite turns on at 11:00AM. The kessils ramp down over 3 hours starting at 7:00PM so they are off at 10:00PM. The reefbrite turns off at 11:00PM. I have only had the kessil lights so I can not give you any opinions on the uno or any other light. I can only tell you that my combination has been awesome for keeping everything from acros to softies. I’ve experienced excellent growth in my acros and other sps.
 
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I don’t notice much shadowing but the kessils are not on by themselves for very long. They ramp up over 3 hours starting at 7:00AM. The reefbrite turns on at 11:00AM. The kessils ramp down over 3 hours starting at 7:00PM so they are off at 10:00PM. The reefbrite turns off at 11:00PM. I have only had the kessil lights so I can not give you any opinions on the uno or any other light. I can only tell you that my combination has been awesome for keeping everything from acros to softies. I’ve experienced excellent growth in my acros and other sps.
Thank you for taking the time to answer everything. It was a huge help and I really appreciate it. This gave me a lot of great information to go through.
 
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I personally would go for the uno no doubt. The pc amber and lime leds give amazing color rendition that almost all commercial fixtures are just now catching up on. Plus their 3 year warranty and cooling systems are just a step above. I would still consider adding orphek bars down the road as colonies grow but you will have a good while for that.
Excellent! Thank you. I'm curious to see the amber/lime combo on person. It's an interesting combo.
 
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I've ran both lights and can give you my take on them. I ran a single A360X over a 20gal long for several months before switching it out to a single Reefi Uno.

I started with the Kessil. It was a great light and it was my first "big boy" light. At first I didn't purchase the controller, and once I did, I realized how much I was missing. The colors were great and it produced plenty of par for my SPS corals. It was powerful enough for me to question why so many people said it wasn't a good light for SPS. Until my SPS corals began to grow out. Shadowing quickly became apparent and an issue I knew I'd need to deal with soon. So I bought two ReefBreeder lumen bars to supplement. I really liked this combo as the colors were stunning and the shadowing was no longer an issue. I would have continued to use this combo on the tank, but I was looking to upgrade to a much larger and deeper tank. I knew the Kessil wouldn't scale up and keep high par numbers without a lot of supplementation. So I began looking for a more budget friendly option.

Que the release of the Reefi Uno. Double the power, built in controller, anti glare lense, all for $100 less than the kessil without a controller. I decided to give it a shot and see if I liked it, if I didn't I would just switch back. Setup for me was a bit troublesome, but it was completely on my end and had nothing to do with the software or hardware from Reefi. I ran into an issue where my Router's WiFi just didn't like to connect to the light. I messaged Daniel a few times and he was great about trouble shooting with me and responded very quickly. Once I logged into the light directly through my phone or computer and not over WiFi, I had zero issues with connecting. Basically the difference between the methods of control is being able to control the light from anywhere via having it connected to WiFi vs only at home by logging into it directly. I really couldn't care less about logging into the light while I'm away from home and struggle to find ANY situation where that's really needed so not a big loss for me at all. I believe my issue stems from modification I've made to my IP address settings and router settings for running gaming servers. Again, I feel and believe in no way that this issue was caused by anything ReeFi related and if you were to try connecting through your own person WiFi that you'd have zero issues. Just keep in mind that the light, like most tech in this industry, needs to be connected to a 2.4GHz WiFi signal and NOT a 5GHz signal.

Once that was sorted, programing was just as easy as the Kessil, and I LOVE the option for acclimation programing. Something that should be included with every light on the market. The color variance on this light is CRAZY. You truly can tune it to your taste. This light is also a par monster. at 55w of power I'm seeing 300 par on the sand bed 12" below the water's surface with the light hung 11 inches above the water. The spread is very slightly less than the Kessil which is to be expected with the Kessil's optics. Something that still impresses me to this day though, is the lenses on the Uno. In order to get any glare from the light, I basically have to look straight up at the lights. Where with the Kessil I had a constant glare from the lense. For that alone, I'd pick the Uno over the A360X as it makes looking at the tank so much more pleasant. I still have a good amount of shimmer, which for me is a welcome change. The kessil would give me headaches from time to tiem with the amount of shimmer it produced. My biggest worry about the Uno was disco effect due to the individual lenses on each LED vs the Kessil's single lense. I was super happy to see ZERO dicso effect or signs of individual colors in the shimmer lines. It's very well blended. Shadowing was better than the Kessil, however, I still felt that/saw the benefit of the LED bars as supplement. Oh, I should mention that I was also very happy with the build quality of the Reefi Uno.

Overall I'm very happy with the Uno and will be using them over my new tank. In this journey I have learned a few things that I'd like to share for your consideration though.


#1 I would certainly continue to use single point lights in the future, as I already plan to. HOWEVER, I would not ever plan on ONLY ever using single point lights. I 100% think they need to be used in conjunction with supplemental lighting such as T5's or LED bars.

#2 Single point lights do not offer enough coverage a cost effective price point. They just don't. Buying extra lights to get more coverage is a great way to spend the same amount of money as just buying panel lights in the first place.

#3 Single point lights ARE a great value when paired with supplemental lighting such as T5's or LED bars. Especially single used Hybrid T5 fixtures can be found for very cheap, and LED bars are a wonderful coverage/$ option as well.

My new tank is 48"x24"x16" and I will be using a combination of Reefi Uno's and Reefbright strips to light it. My personal build is a bit different as my tank will be a good mix of corals. So I'm using 4 reefbright strips and a single Uno for now. The Reefbrights are producing enough par that I'm growing all my LPS corals with no issue. The Uno will be used over the section with SPS to increase the PAR.

So that leads to what I suggest for you. Two Reefi Uno's and Two Orphek or ReefBright LED bars for additional coverage. Honestly, if you wanted to go with the Kessils, this is what I would also suggest, but I would go with the Uno's over the kessils all day long. This will be FAR more cost efficient than four single point lights with MUCH better spread and way less shadowing. You will still have PLENTY of par especially with the Reefi Uno's to the point where you'll still need to turn them down for SPS. Unless you've got a tank deeper than 30" in which case an argument can then be made for a light much more powerful than 180watts.
Wow. This is full of great and helpful information. Thank you so much for spending the time to break it down. Lots of good stuff th go through.

It really is the community which makes R2R a great place to "be".
 

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Here's my Reefer 750 with 5 Unos. Couldn't be happier with them.
inbound6806952571132573010.jpg
 

hart24601

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Excellent! Thank you. I'm curious to see the amber/lime combo on person. It's an interesting combo.
I should perhaps explain a bit about those colors. They come from photography led world where they help with our perceived brightness of the tank and led color rendition. They mix with the blues to provide a very crisp white and help remove windex color from the water. Of course one can turn them up or down as desired.

Lots of people that switched to leds years ago thought the tanks looked so dim, even with plenty of par, for those types these leds were the missing link so to speak.
 
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I should perhaps explain a bit about those colors. They come from photography led world where they help with our perceived brightness of the tank and led color rendition. They mix with the blues to provide a very crisp white and help remove windex color from the water. Of course one can turn them up or down as desired.

Lots of people that switched to leds years ago thought the tanks looked so dim, even with plenty of par, for those types these leds were the missing link so to speak.
Totally makes sense. I ran another fixture in the past with the same problem. It used warm whites for all colors which weren't blue or violet. Fine in theory, but it looked like crap to me (subjective).

I've used amber in some of the fixtures I built, but not lime (I used mint) . I also had them associated to a "white" channel, so I was never able to "see" them.

Thank you for the info!
 

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I should perhaps explain a bit about those colors. They come from photography led world where they help with our perceived brightness of the tank and led color rendition. They mix with the blues to provide a very crisp white and help remove windex color from the water. Of course one can turn them up or down as desired.

Lots of people that switched to leds years ago thought the tanks looked so dim, even with plenty of par, for those types these leds were the missing link so to speak.
Another great thing about the Amber/lime LEDs is that it really shows the colors of the fish more. That is one thing I forgot to add in my post. The Kessil really drowned out the colors of my fish and I never realized it until I switched to the uno. I actually thought something as wrong with my fish after I switched lights because of how different they looked.
 

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2 stratons = 2200 3 a360x = 1500 = 3700

4 a360x = 2000 + reefbrite quad = 1040 = 3040

yeah, maybe just go 2 A360X to bring it to 3200. i personally think its worth the extra cost, the stratons are top of the line IMO

or, if you dont mind a more 10K daylight look, the coralcare gen 2 are on clearance for dirt cheap (550) right now. you could go 2 (or even 3) of them and 3 a360x which could even get you more blue. i'd highly consider this as well
Where do you see them for 550?
 
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Another great thing about the Amber/lime LEDs is that it really shows the colors of the fish more. That is one thing I forgot to add in my post. The Kessil really drowned out the colors of my fish and I never realized it until I switched to the uno. I actually thought something as wrong with my fish after I switched lights because of how different they looked.
Interesting. I hadn't considered the fish color being washed out with the Kessils. In the end, I placed an order for four of the Unos this evening. Lots of great feedback from the client base and Daniel was very patient with my questions. He had wonderful customer service before I had even purchased anything. That's pretty awesome.
 

Kyl

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Daniel has put a shot across the bow of every point source fixture manufacturer in the hobby, and made them look rather greedy in the process. That uno has the power, has the spectrum, and has a real warranty behind it, all for less.

Compared to what DiCon considers "modern", no settling for legacy wired controls, no forking out another $100 on a stupid wireless dongle, and you have the creator that is consistently putting out firmware updates for bug fixes or better features, unlike much of the competition. DiCon could learn a thing or two from a one man show. Remember that as well when manufacturers in the hobby use excuses like 'everyone else does it', talking down to you if you dare question why you should pay top dollar and settle for less.
 

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