Why the Kessil H380 was my best purchase ever

[bdejong1112o]

It was the BRS study on growing cheato thay got me to open my wallet wide in my new tank build and use the H380. 300 for fuge light? Yup. Considering the cost of all the other stuff its not out of line.

My 29g fuge is packed with alge. Grown both cheato and hair down there and keeps it to a minimum in the display. I do have some in the display but thats ok with me since it feeds my critters that like alge. Whats important is that there is like 1000x more alge in the fuge.

The light works great, its quiet and the red glow around the doors looks cool at night when the tank is blue. Colors everywhere. I even see it shining up the overflow that is on the left side where my fuge tank is.

 

[Ryanbrs]

Looking forward to a new h380 that has adj intensity. Common issue is burning chaeto, especially when growth is low. Could raise and lower butalot of work, bring out the knob. Triton method seems to be working like a over sized skimmer where it kicks in when doc is high and produces low skimmate when not. Chaeto growns when nutrients are up and burns, goes dormant or crashes when N&P are 0. Need to adj light for lower growth ( my opinion).

I think you could also adjust it with shorter photo periods maybe just a hour a night and add an hour every week. Could also try a few dollar light diffuser plastic from Home Depot . I am also guessing that water is flowing over the top portion is beneficial.

There is no way around it a sudden jump of 10 to 20x par is not going to have a positive reaction in the short term.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Taken just 10 minutes ago. This is exactly 1 week under the H380




Day 1 for comparison

If it's something you guys are interested in, every Monday i'll take a video of my fuge and my chaeto progress and post it in this thread as sort of a follow along of my progression

 

[Crabs McJones]

The Kessil t5 combo is my current go-to light. It just looks and performs better than any other led option the team has used. There are lots of good led options but most either have disco or coverage issues that prevent me from personally using them on my own tanks. It’s just a preference thing, I also don’t care about sliders and phone apps. I just want it to grow corals and make the tank look as good as possible.

As to 700 or 360? The 700 is lower profile, looks nice, higher output and wider spectrum but the slave master relationship is not reliable enough for anyone who has to unplug them or looses power frequently.

Here at the shop with video we have constant needs to power the tank down and it just became such an annoyance that I had to go back to the 360s. After making the change I have to say I like the ability to space the 360s the way I want, I have them turned down to half power anyways and I prefer the manual controls over messing with WiFi and phone apps.

All that said if I didn’t have a hood I would stay with the 700s because they simply look so much better above the tank and there is less than 1/3 the cords. That kind of thing matters to me.

Ryan, I'm going to hopefully be ordering my Aquatic Life T5 Hybrid later this week. As someone who is completely unfamiliar with T5, what 4 bulb combination would you recommend to do with my AP700? Thanks in advance

 

[drtrash]

2 coral +, blue+ and purple+ will fill a wide range. You can go with 1 more blue but the 700 puts out more than enough blue that is would make color muddy

 

[Ryanbrs]

Ryan, I'm going to hopefully be ordering my Aquatic Life T5 Hybrid later this week. As someone who is completely unfamiliar with T5, what 4 bulb combination would you recommend to do with my AP700? Thanks in advance

I think a lot of people will just go all ATI blue plus and then use the kessil for color. Outside of that some people like the purple plus and the coral plus because they have some red which gives the apperence of purple. Coral plus has less red than the purple plus. To be honest I would buy a couple extras of different types and play with them because it is the only way to know.

 

[Bradley Keck]

I bought the h80 and am now regretting it. My concern was I have a trigger 34 sump, and the refugium is only 14x10in. I thought there would be way too much spill over and I would have algae all over my sump. I still I don't have everything put together, so wondering what you guys think about this theory. When I place my live rock in the tank to cycle and a little mysis, I plan to run no lights except for the h80 and chaeto. I'm hoping the chaeto will have a head start and be able to grab up the nutrients from the decomp of the mysis before the algae even has a chance to grow in the display because I will have no lights while the live rock cycles. Think it might help the h80 be more effective maybe? I am kicking myself now, but like you said I bought the h80 based on great reviews and though it will not have as much spill over, and I could focus it right on the chaeto.

 

[drtrash]

Nothing wrong with h80, quality light but not alot of punch. It out compeated screw in bulbs in growth, it has decent spread, low heat and low power consumption. I have even pulled it off sump and used it on the blue setting for quaratined anemone

 

[1stNoel]

If you decide it's not for you, hit me up.

 

[Servillius]

"You can't spend hundereds if not thousands of dollars on lighting a huge display and expecting a small box on the back of the display with a $5 bulb and expect it to out compete the display for nutrients." - Ryan @ BRS

This is a work of sublime and flawless salesmanship of the first order. It’s also totally true and completely reasonable which makes it even better, but the summation deserves to be taught in classes.

 

[infinityends]

I tried an h380. All it did was cook an algae placed in the fuge. Maybe I had the light cycle set too long or something. I even used some heavy duty dog proof window screening to block light easily cut the light in half with a couple layers. Still cooked algae under 10” of water and hanging 6-8” over the sump. I was really disappointed that the h380 didn’t have an intensity adjustment. And then it crapped out from the minor amount of salt spray under a reef and kessil support responded once and never replied to a couple of follow up emails I sent.

Not saying they don’t make a good light. But it’s not designed for a five it’s designed for a greenhouse or hydroponic farm and therefor has some serious flaws imo for the purpose of a reef tank unless you have the room for a full on filter/fish room

 

[1stNoel]

I bought the h80 and am now regretting it. My concern was I have a trigger 34 sump, and the refugium is only 14x10in. I thought there would be way too much spill over and I would have algae all over my sump. I still I don't have everything put together, so wondering what you guys think about this theory. When I place my live rock in the tank to cycle and a little mysis, I plan to run no lights except for the h80 and chaeto. I'm hoping the chaeto will have a head start and be able to grab up the nutrients from the decomp of the mysis before the algae even has a chance to grow in the display because I will have no lights while the live rock cycles. Think it might help the h80 be more effective maybe? I am kicking myself now, but like you said I bought the h80 based on great reviews and though it will not have as much spill over, and I could focus it right on the chaeto.

If you decide it's not for you, hit me up.

My apologies. I thought he meant the H380. Just got a flood of offers for the H80.

 

[Tbyram]

I have an H380 also. Unfortunately it just burned my Cheato. I think my stand doesn't allow me to have it far enough away from the water surface so went back to the LED daylight bulb from Lowes and it started growing huge again. Looks from the picture that yours is pretty far away from the chaeto/water.

 

[Berlibee]

This is my 7.5g refugium that I was talking about. Kessil was about 9" above and burning also everything inside. Changes to 12" later and it was the same result.

 

[Crabs McJones]

This is my 7.5g refugium that I was talking about. Kessil was about 9" above and burning also everything inside. Changes to 12" later and it was the same result.

Was your chaeto tumbling ornsotting in one spot? I noticed when I couldn't get my chaeto to tumble it would turn white and melt, after I upped my return pump to increase the flow and got mine to tumble (see the video in this thread) it's been taking off ever since. I kind of equate it to if you're lying out in the sun tanning, and you never flip over from your back to your stomach, you're going to get burned on one side

 

[Berlibee]

It was not tumbling no but I couldn't achieve the constant tumbling. But many people grow chaeto without tumbling.

 

[Crabs McJones]

It was not tumbling no but I couldn't achieve the constant tumbling. But many people grow chaeto without tumbling.

True, but maybe not with such a high powered light?

 

[Berlibee]

True, but maybe not with such a high powered light?

Maybe man, I don't know. My surprise was that you H80 was burning it as well. I wanted first to try the H80. But it's really surprising that you've said the same issue with the H80 before.

 

[lbacha]

I hear a lot of people adding massive amounts of light (h380 at high intensity I'm assuming) and are confused about the algae dying.

I started in reefs before fuges when macro algae was kept in the main display. Switched to high tech planted tanks and now I'm back to reef tanks. You can compare your fuge to a high tech freshwater planted tank. If you add high light with low nutrients you will have issues, if you add high light with low CO2 you will have issues (this is why 24/7 fuge lighting helps regulate PH).

I wouldn't recommend a h380 at high intensity unless you have high nutrients and high CO2 in the tank otherwise you risk the algae crashing due to lack of food and too much light.

On a separate note I haven't heard this anywhere but a good sign that the cheato is doing well under the high light is pearling (small oxygen bubbles forming) this is typically a sign of high nutrient and CO2 input and should happen under high lighting if everything else is good.

Edit: pearling is what causes cheato to float in the fuge

 

[Ryanbrs]

I have an H380 also. Unfortunately it just burned my Cheato. I think my stand doesn't allow me to have it far enough away from the water surface so went back to the LED daylight bulb from Lowes and it started growing huge again. Looks from the picture that yours is pretty far away from the chaeto/water.

For anyone experiencing this issue I would suggest starting with an hour a day and adding an hour every week. Or coming in at an angle to distance the light atleast 12” . Some sump designs also have little to no flow at the surface which where the actual photosynthesis is happening which means there is very little co2 or nutrients. Might want to look at ways to get some water movment if that’s the case. There is a video on this being released next week.

Keep in mind we would have the same issue with corals if we attempted to go from Low light options like compact fluorescents to radion pros at 100%