To be SPS dominated, 60x30x30 233g - Kessil A360WE + T5HO ?

[ScottB]

I agree with @madweazl that you should not expect too much additional PAR getting pushed from the T5s alone especially given your depth and height. But they do a great job filling in the cold spots. I am a fan of the Aquatic Life fixture for this purpose. I believe the 61" comes with 4 Kessil brackets but double check. I do think you will need 4.

 

[madweazl]

T5s will provide plenty of PAR to the bottom of the tank with a good ballast/setup, the AquaticLife just doesn't. 6 48" T5s push 250+ PAR to the bottom of my tank by themselves.

 

[Biff0rz]

I have a 60x24x24 150g with a Kessil/T5 hybrid (I also the same setup with 2 Kessils over my 75g acro dominated tank). You can find the Kessil result here and the Kessil/T5 results here. Further up in the same thread are results for the AquaticLife hybrid fixture for the 75g. The PAR from the T5s in the AquaticLife fixture are dismal; I dont know if they've done anything to address it but I ditched it and went with LET retrofits over the 150g.

Did you build your own canopy/fixture? Not sure I really want to do that...

I agree with @madweazl that you should not expect too much additional PAR getting pushed from the T5s alone especially given your depth and height. But they do a great job filling in the cold spots. I am a fan of the Aquatic Life fixture for this purpose. I believe the 61" comes with 4 Kessil brackets but double check. I do think you will need 4.

It can come with 4, I got 3. I could get another one, or even a 5th. My reading is telling me the a360we's are better for shallow tanks due to them being wide, not narrow. I do like the shimmer of them though. I was considering maybe doing 6 kessil's with the T5, spacing them 1' apart, I'm still not sure that'd be enough par to the glass, but I would get the shimmer effect. My other option is the reefbreeders photon 50 v2+ with the t5 fixture. That looks like it can push the par. Last option is just 2 photon 50 v2+'s. I'm not sure what would be better?

T5s will provide plenty of PAR to the bottom of the tank with a good ballast/setup, the AquaticLife just doesn't. 6 48" T5s push 250+ PAR to the bottom of my tank by themselves.

I do want some sort of hybrid setup, not all t5's..

 

[neiltus]

Reefer 350 here running for 6 years with 3 kessil 360we. I've ran tanks since the 80s when t5 were in much more use than now.

I rented BRS par meter that works with LEDs. Did not really care for how it mapped, a lot of shadowing in places and par readings on the floor were barely 30.

I ordered the new aquatic life hood (dimmable), and wall brackets. Really did not want to wall mount it, but it does tilt the fixture 2" down so it aims it back at the wall.

I started a thread about bulbs, tried a c+ and an aquablue special that were too white, I put in 2x Actinic and 2x Blue +, am running 2, not 3 kessils at 60% now with color to 20 when the t5 are on. This blend gives me good reds/oranges and does not really wash out stuff.

Par Values w Kessils at 60, new bulbs so they should tame a bit.
18" Bottom - Front is about 180 up by glass to 100 in rear where the black is still on the glass
12" Middle - Front to rear about 225, pretty even, maybe 200 220 in the rear.
6" Top - 325 in the dead center under the kessils.

Pretty happy with those numbers. I have crushed coral and pretty darn clear water so that does up par.

Couple upsides to the light, I had three kessil arms clamped on the tank.
1-I had a noise or vibration I could not locate. Gone when I moved those arms off the tank. Presumed kessil fans.
2-more evap!, and a lot of people will not like this, I let the tank cool down to like 75.4 overnight, and in the course of the day it warms to right under 78. 2 more liters on evap.
3-same coral load, new light I needed to up my soda ash by 20% and calcium almost the same amount.
4-tames the kessil shimmer to more realistic levels, less disco.
5-can use my custom acrylic top without altering it.

I prefer the look and so do the coral margins, considered buying a 4th kessil and mount. Same price as a hood and bulbs....downside bulb cost of about 1 bill over a year.

But, seen plenty of good LED based tanks too.

 

[madweazl]

Did you build your own canopy/fixture? Not sure I really want to do that...


It can come with 4, I got 3. I could get another one, or even a 5th. My reading is telling me the a360we's are better for shallow tanks due to them being wide, not narrow. I do like the shimmer of them though. I was considering maybe doing 6 kessil's with the T5, spacing them 1' apart, I'm still not sure that'd be enough par to the glass, but I would get the shimmer effect. My other option is the reefbreeders photon 50 v2+ with the t5 fixture. That looks like it can push the par. Last option is just 2 photon 50 v2+'s. I'm not sure what would be better?


I do want some sort of hybrid setup, not all t5's..

Chances of the AquaticLife providing decent PAR is slim in that tank but it may work. To put this in perspective, I ran 2 48" T5s in a LET retrofit before going to the AquaticLife. After adding 2 more 48" T5s in the AquaticLive, PAR went up roughly 20% (it should have doubled). It's PAR results are poor at best but it does provide some flexibility. The WEs provide a bit more PAR than the X does. The X provides considerably wider spread at the cost of that PAR. My DIY frame for the T5s was a piece of cake to put together; just used some square aluminum tubing from Lowes and mounted the LET retrofits.

 

[Biff0rz]

Reefer 350 here running for 6 years with 3 kessil 360we. I've ran tanks since the 80s when t5 were in much more use than now.

I rented BRS par meter that works with LEDs. Did not really care for how it mapped, a lot of shadowing in places and par readings on the floor were barely 30.

I ordered the new aquatic life hood (dimmable), and wall brackets. Really did not want to wall mount it, but it does tilt the fixture 2" down so it aims it back at the wall.

I started a thread about bulbs, tried a c+ and an aquablue special that were too white, I put in 2x Actinic and 2x Blue +, am running 2, not 3 kessils at 60% now with color to 20 when the t5 are on. This blend gives me good reds/oranges and does not really wash out stuff.

Par Values w Kessils at 60, new bulbs so they should tame a bit.
18" Bottom - Front is about 180 up by glass to 100 in rear where the black is still on the glass
12" Middle - Front to rear about 225, pretty even, maybe 200 220 in the rear.
6" Top - 325 in the dead center under the kessils.

Pretty happy with those numbers. I have crushed coral and pretty darn clear water so that does up par.

Couple upsides to the light, I had three kessil arms clamped on the tank.
1-I had a noise or vibration I could not locate. Gone when I moved those arms off the tank. Presumed kessil fans.
2-more evap!, and a lot of people will not like this, I let the tank cool down to like 75.4 overnight, and in the course of the day it warms to right under 78. 2 more liters on evap.
3-same coral load, new light I needed to up my soda ash by 20% and calcium almost the same amount.
4-tames the kessil shimmer to more realistic levels, less disco.
5-can use my custom acrylic top without altering it.

I prefer the look and so do the coral margins, considered buying a 4th kessil and mount. Same price as a hood and bulbs....downside bulb cost of about 1 bill over a year.

But, seen plenty of good LED based tanks too.

Yea, my tank is 30" deep - 180 by the glass at 18" probably isn't enough for me...

 

[Biff0rz]

Chances of the AquaticLife providing decent PAR is slim in that tank but it may work. To put this in perspective, I ran 2 48" T5s in a LET retrofit before going to the AquaticLife. After adding 2 more 48" T5s in the AquaticLive, PAR went up roughly 20% (it should have doubled). It's PAR results are poor at best but it does provide some flexibility. The WEs provide a bit more PAR than the X does. The X provides considerably wider spread at the cost of that PAR. My DIY frame for the T5s was a piece of cake to put together; just used some square aluminum tubing from Lowes and mounted the LET retrofits.

Yea, I'm not really counting on the aquaticlife for the par, but I think I've been thinking about it wrong. The par should come from the t5's, not the led's.

What is your PAR with the 6 + Kessil's at 18"?

 

[Biff0rz]

Chances of the AquaticLife providing decent PAR is slim in that tank but it may work. To put this in perspective, I ran 2 48" T5s in a LET retrofit before going to the AquaticLife. After adding 2 more 48" T5s in the AquaticLive, PAR went up roughly 20% (it should have doubled). It's PAR results are poor at best but it does provide some flexibility. The WEs provide a bit more PAR than the X does. The X provides considerably wider spread at the cost of that PAR. My DIY frame for the T5s was a piece of cake to put together; just used some square aluminum tubing from Lowes and mounted the LET retrofits.

Also, any thoughts on me just running two Photon 50-V2's?

 

[neiltus]

Yea, my tank is 30" deep - 180 by the glass at 18" probably isn't enough for me...

Back in the old ages, we used 6 bulbs of t5 down to about 24. If your tank is 30 deep is that glass? because you will have an 1.5" at water line, then you might have 2" of bed.

I would try it with the understanding you might need another spot. But you will prob find out your around 140 which is not far off.

FWIW, BRS did a video on the reflectors of the different fixtures and how they effect par. I found it pretty interesting.

There is always MH.

 

[neiltus]

I have a 60x24x24 150g with a Kessil/T5 hybrid (I also the same setup with 2 Kessils over my 75g acro dominated tank). You can find the Kessil result here and the Kessil/T5 results here. Further up in the same thread are results for the AquaticLife hybrid fixture for the 75g. The PAR from the T5s in the AquaticLife fixture are dismal; I dont know if they've done anything to address it but I ditched it and went with LET retrofits over the 150g.

Which Aquatic Life fixture is this? BRS did a video showing the reflectors on the new hybrid outperform ATI's reflectors (just slightly, but)?

 

[madweazl]

Which Aquatic Life fixture is this? BRS did a video showing the reflectors on the new hybrid outperform ATI's reflectors (just slightly, but)?

I had one of the originals so if they updated it, perhaps it performs well now (the originals do not). It works and it's a nice looking solution for the price, it just under-performs.

 

[madweazl]

Yea, I'm not really counting on the aquaticlife for the par, but I think I've been thinking about it wrong. The par should come from the t5's, not the led's.

What is your PAR with the 6 + Kessil's at 18"?

Though there are some that believe this way, I've not personally seen it make any difference. Ideally, you'd have both at 100% producing the PAR numbers and coverage you're after but that is difficult to do. PAR on the sand ranges from 260-430 (260 being outside the T5s since they're only 48" over 60" tank and 430 being dead center in the tank).

Also, any thoughts on me just running two Photon 50-V2's?

Seen plenty of tanks doing just fine with the Photons (and every other light configuration you can think of as well). One caution I will give with any LED setup is to not mess with it. Pick a setting, dump whatever thoughts you have on desired intensity out the window, and just let them run. Too many corals have been killed by people messing with the LED settings (including me when I knew better). Don't arbitrarily pick a PAR number; start low and if EVERYTHING else is right and your corals still aren't doing well (color, extension or retraction, etc.), consider lighting adjustments.

 

[Tuffyyyyy]

Also, any thoughts on me just running two Photon 50-V2's?

I think you'll be A-okay with that. I love the look of that fixture and would love to try them eventually. My only concern was how high you had to hang them for an even spread.

I know you've moved onto reefbreeder but I feel like I need to update my original PAR post for Kessil. The PAR values I gave on page 1 were for all blues on max power. I was curious how much of a change there would be so I flipped it to be white and with max power - I'm now getting ~300 PAR towards the top of my rock structure. My tank is only 24" to the bottom but I was also surprised with how much PAR I had in the sand - it was well over 100.

 

[Biff0rz]

I think you'll be A-okay with that. I love the look of that fixture and would love to try them eventually. My only concern was how high you had to hang them for an even spread.

I know you've moved onto reefbreeder but I feel like I need to update my original PAR post for Kessil. The PAR values I gave on page 1 were for all blues on max power. I was curious how much of a change there would be so I flipped it to be white and with max power - I'm now getting ~300 PAR towards the top of my rock structure. My tank is only 24" to the bottom but I was also surprised with how much PAR I had in the sand - it was well over 100.

Interesting! Thanks for following up on this. I actually held off on the reefbreeder for now. I want to get the aqua life light and the 3 kessils I have over it an see what it does. I also put in an order for 2 coral life Gen 2's lol. Those should arrive in a month or so, which is when I'll actually begin to need them (sorta). If I can fit those two between the hybrid and maybe a kessil or 2 I should have more than enough par, lots of blue, and even some shimmer. We'll see if I can make it all fit. It is a 30" wide tank after all I may need to make some custom brackets for the hybrid, we'll see.

 

[bobnicaragua]

For now, you're numbers really don't look bad. Concentrate the acros in the main part of the tank and put stylos, montis, and other lower light corals on the edges.

You can add another Kessil when you get around to it.