Feeling sorry for Kessil after the latest BRS series

[BeanAnimal]

I did not mean any offense, nor did I intend to put words in your mouth. I guess what I should have said is a lot of the statements I have read in this thread seem to imply dishonesty or propensity for dishonesty on BRS's part. That said, you are correct no one seems to be saying BRS is "lying". I guess my question should really be: Can the data be trusted even if the opinions are suspect? Do we think the data presented by BRS is valuable? Or is there reason to suspect the data is intentionally misleading?

It depends on the context. I don’t think they are creating bogus data. I do think that they have a vested interest to interpret data a certain way in some cases, or skew perception certain directions be it by omission or careful wording.

They would be crazy not to… they are a business not a non-profit seeking to help aquarists.

 

[Spare time]

I don't believe the data is wrong. Or misleading. I believe how they presented it or talked about it may have come off misleading to some.

They have also praised kessil more than any other lighting company in the past imo

 

[VanDalsenReef]

They have also praised kessil more than any other lighting company in the past imo

Yes.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I don't envy their position. They are doing these videos to increase brand awareness (theirs and their partners) and prop up sales. Every product has a margin, a contract and a wholesaler or manufacturer to deal with, as well as a sales volume. By doing these tests and reviews they have to navigate this mess carefully. Some companies will put up with a lot more than others.

In the end, they are business and have to cater to both the customer perception as well as the manufacturer relationship. While I am not a huge BRS fan for many reasons and not a fan of many of the reviews or general opinions, they do a decent job with many of these larger testing projects.

 

[AKG]

BRS is a corporation and corporations are businesses that have profits to make like anyone else. I think they try to do the right thing but we all understand that these people live and breath aquatics to they know how to set up a given test to make x or y product look like a lesser product.

At the end of the day, use the lights you enjoy. Hell, an incandescent bulb can grow a coral.

I'd argue that the light you can afford is the best light, and if you can't afford the lights then your tank is too big. It's a hobby for disposable income, and nobody entering it should consider farming without a level of self learning investment that renders BRS material moot.

I hold nothing against BRS for their practices and frankly you should be more concerned about right to repair so that companies like BRS can focus on building reliable products instead of obsolescence.

Light technology is advanced, but your tanks can only take so much par

 

[RichReef]

When I started out in reefing we were all using MH. I can not explain in words how much I loved the look.

Then came T5. Most of us switched to T5 because of coverage. But still needed 6 bulbs to cover.
Then LED.

I have had the experience of using Maxspect Razor, Radion G2 and G4, T5, and MH. Various other lights.

I never liked setting up the Radions. I don't want to have to use a website or app and I'm not a fan of aquarium controllers. My APEX rots on a shelf and it can stay there. It's just more work.

I also don't enjoy the heavy blue from LEDs. Way too blue. I don't need my corals to glow.

So with my new build I went with the A360X/T5 setup. I wanted my shimmer back and I wanted T5 coverage.

After using a PAR meter to set my lighting a few weeks ago I can say I am more than happy with my choice. My Kessils run at 65%. They are 12 inches from the surface. That makes me happy for a few reasons. Light doesn't have to be run full intensity and it gives me space for more options. I am probably not like others when setting up lights. I want 150 par on the sand bed at the center of the tank and the rest is what it is. At the top of my structure I am getting around 325. I was also using the narrow reflector which I was able to take off after adding the T5 in the mix. The reflector made a big difference in PAR. About a 30-65 difference depending on the area you measure. With the narrow reflectors they were doing great by themselves but running at 85 to 95 percent. They DID hurt the shimmer though.

I can also change out my T5 bulbs giving me more options.

Shadowing is now non existent.

So I'm not really sure where the issue is with Kessil. I watched the video but it didn't make me regret the Kessil purchase. My tank(s) have never looked better. To me anyways.

I am also not looking for blazing growth. I'm not a vendor. I don't want to be trimming coral every week. My coral always looked bad ... to me ... when I had blazing growth that I had to trim all the time. Holes from the trim. Bust off more than I wanted. Hurt another coral by mistake ect ... Growth is great when you're trying to get there but not so great when things are where you want them.

The key to using them by themselves is the narrow reflector and placing one light per 16 inches, 10 to 12 inches off the water surface.

No I didn't record all my data from the PAR readings. I should have but I was just looking to get my T5s turned on. I was afraid to run the T5s without proper PAR readings.

I am not saying they are the best lights. They are the best for what I was looking for.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Hopefully kessil gets the urge to make a panel style light that has multiple mini dense matrix diodes, how awesome would that be! Probably the only problem they'd have, is making it cheap enough for all you chepos!!! LoL :/

 

[BeanAnimal]

Never Been a Kessil fan - even if they do grow coral (What doesn't anymore).

To me they look dim and grungy even if the PAR is good - the shimmer is not like MH and has spread/coverage nothing like a traditional MH in a good reflector.

Not sure what I DO like - but the Kessil is not it.
If i had my way, I would have 15K phoenix HQIs or similar still. I just don't want to deal with the heat and do enjoy the sunrise/sunset of LEDs.

 

[yanetterer]

Hopefully kessil gets the urge to make a panel style light that has multiple mini dense matrix diodes, how awesome would that be! Probably the only problem they'd have, is making it cheap enough for all you chepos!!! LoL :/

Like an AP9X made up of a couple dozen A80s with narrower lenses.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Like an AP9X made up of a couple dozen A80s with narrower lenses.

That would be sweet or maybe bigger! I think multiple sizes, or maybe even a modular system some how so you can built onto one panel with other seperate panels, no matter if you have a 24" long tank or 124" long. maybe modular front to back too, so if you have a 12" or 36" deep it will fit to any tank size.

I think the future of reef lighting will be very exciting in the next coming years! Hopefully with all the videos(good and bad), reviews and p2p interaction on all these topics, it pushes the manufacturers to keep improving their products and advancing their technology. I Expect alot of quality reef lights to be very expensive in this future.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

I'm amazed at what some people take away from these videos. If anything brs is making an argument that people should buy more kessils instead of less if it is what you want to use. Or you could go a cheaper route and use other lights to flood the tank and then you can just use a kessil for some shimmer. I didn't see the part where they are trying to kill kessils or any other lights. More like whatever you use, for best results you need to cover the tank and minimize shadows.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

I don’t think I’m too far off base by drawing the conclusion that a lot of shade was thrown towards kessil. The last video opened pretty strong with what were we thinking and where did we go wrong. Followed by man those lights looked great aesthetically and the shimmer phenomenal…to the Bose crappy acoustimas comparison to unnamed high price pucks (draw your own conclusion) and ended with how do we make it better. Ryan also went out on a limb and said if he were to go out and get lights today it would be xr30 with blades or all blades (so in a way he did make a direct recommendation), following up with if you already have lights of any brand to just add fill light of your choosing and there you go. Adding that personally, to the eye you can’t beat a hybrid kessil in his opinion. The thought of where do we go from here is where I was trying to go with the thread. I wasn’t trying to imply that Ryan hates kessil. The data spoke for itself, the commentary was pretty negative from the standpoint of that’s what we all thought was good at the time, but we were wrong and here’s why and it’s time to change. He mentioned that although a full size panel the same dimension as the tank would probably be the ideal lighting solution that it would probably be a difficult sell. My original title of feeling sorry for kessil wasn’t as I thought the series said to throw them in the trash. It was from the standpoint of the data showing they weren’t the greatest option for sps dom even with supplemental lighting compared to other options available today. If I were in the market for lighting (personal beliefs aside), and watched the series, I don’t think I would be buying any pucks, kessil, hydra, reefled, or other even with supplemental lighting. Especially any supplemental lighting focused on 450nm as they threw that under the bus as well. As I mentioned earlier on, all the other manufacturers have a deeper bench as far as aquarium equipment. Kessil, not so much and why I feel sorry. This was for the posts that were stating that no recommendation or preference was made in the series as it was only data for you to draw your own conclusion, which if you watched the second video isn’t necessarily true. As well as the posts stating that they didn’t notice anything negative about pucks or kessil and that conclusions were being made that weren’t presented in the series. Again, watch the latest video not just the data video. The idea of what’s next is intriguing.

 

[62518161]

What I said was very clear and you are being patently obtuse for the sake of argument. Put words in somebody else's mouth and argue with them. I offered my thoughts, and as you say... don't have a horse in this race. Have fun.

 

[BeanAnimal]

What I find funny but predictable is BRS taking credit for realizing that fuller spectrum is important… among things that we have discussed since the first LED fixtures were released. Priceless. We had these arguments 15 years ago on RC.

 

[Sidsreef]

Brs is just a profit machine at this point. I don’t even bother with 99% of their steering videos.

I’m not defending BRS or anything but. They do experiments on all the lighting and provide reasons with results from the tests they put the products through… I can’t see how any of the videos that they create are solely based off making profit by just saying lies all day so you can buy their stuff… I think that’s a false statement to say they’re only there for profit…. Yes there a business….yess they want to make a profit…but to go as far as to imply they are lying about products just to sell them is a stretch….sounds like a bunch of kessil fan boys got there feelings hurt a lil bit lol hahah

 

[Reign1]

Sigh... Seriously. Loved them. Now Premium Aquatics is my go to. Marine depot couldn't be beat for us west coast folks!

Yes definitely miss them .. I was on the retail end for many years and used to order from “bayside” , those were the days

 

[rtparty]

Great comment. I did notice the channel dimming of the blades and also that five over a 24 were needed, which ends up not being too cheap. More so when you get into larger tanks. I’m really curious to see where things go from here. Another thing I didn’t mention earlier was the commentary regarding bars and the 450nm band which is very common, not being very affective. Well, maybe not ineffective but that a broader spectrum is better. I agree with your idea of multiple arrays, although I’m sure that would be very spendy. My go to would be laser or plasma from the old sci-fi flicks! Ha.

You don’t need 5 Blades over a 24” tank. That would be total overkill and you would run them at like 15-20% tops. 3 over a 24” tank gives SPS PAR everywhere in the tank.

When Ryan talked about 5 Blades over a 24” tank, he specifically mentioned running them with the included tank rests and being as low profile, clean as you could be. When they’re that close to the water, tough to get spread without adding extra fixtures and running them all low percentage wise.

I have 3 over a 36” wide tank (along with 2 XHO) and can keep a mixed reef all day without the XHOs. I kept the XHOs on because I have them. I’ll eventually switch them for Blades. The Blades are so much better it’s not even worth looking at the XHOs at this point IMO.

The whole “full spectrum” card is overplayed at this point IMO. My tank hasn’t skipped a beat since leaving halides. I’d actually say it has improved with much better polyp extension and my Alk/calcium consumption increasing. I was also able to get 50% more PAR with about 1/2 the wattage.

 

[KrisReef]

Just starting a convo, not intended to be an argument starter. Thoughts?

Well I haven't read the thread you started yesterday, yet, but at 7 pages in a day I'm going out on a limb to say you spawned at least some heated convo with your blasphemous post regarding BRS.
Maybe I'll read it after dinner. Happy St. Patricks Day!

 

[CoastalTownLayabout]

Yeah, it appears it’s not just corals that dislike sudden changes in lighting

 

[paragrouper]

When I started out in reefing we were all using MH. I can not explain in words how much I loved the look.

Then came T5. Most of us switched to T5 because of coverage. But still needed 6 bulbs to cover.
Then LED.

I have had the experience of using Maxspect Razor, Radion G2 and G4, T5, and MH. Various other lights.

I never liked setting up the Radions. I don't want to have to use a website or app and I'm not a fan of aquarium controllers. My APEX rots on a shelf and it can stay there. It's just more work.

I also don't enjoy the heavy blue from LEDs. Way too blue. I don't need my corals to glow.

So with my new build I went with the A360X/T5 setup. I wanted my shimmer back and I wanted T5 coverage.

After using a PAR meter to set my lighting a few weeks ago I can say I am more than happy with my choice. My Kessils run at 65%. They are 12 inches from the surface. That makes me happy for a few reasons. Light doesn't have to be run full intensity and it gives me space for more options. I am probably not like others when setting up lights. I want 150 par on the sand bed at the center of the tank and the rest is what it is. At the top of my structure I am getting around 325. I was also using the narrow reflector which I was able to take off after adding the T5 in the mix. The reflector made a big difference in PAR. About a 30-65 difference depending on the area you measure. With the narrow reflectors they were doing great by themselves but running at 85 to 95 percent. They DID hurt the shimmer though.

I can also change out my T5 bulbs giving me more options.

Shadowing is now non existent.

So I'm not really sure where the issue is with Kessil. I watched the video but it didn't make me regret the Kessil purchase. My tank(s) have never looked better. To me anyways.

I am also not looking for blazing growth. I'm not a vendor. I don't want to be trimming coral every week. My coral always looked bad ... to me ... when I had blazing growth that I had to trim all the time. Holes from the trim. Bust off more than I wanted. Hurt another coral by mistake ect ... Growth is great when you're trying to get there but not so great when things are where you want them.

The key to using them by themselves is the narrow reflector and placing one light per 16 inches, 10 to 12 inches off the water surface.

No I didn't record all my data from the PAR readings. I should have but I was just looking to get my T5s turned on. I was afraid to run the T5s without proper PAR readings.

I am not saying they are the best lights. They are the best for what I was looking for.

When I watched the topic video there was a related video recently released I also watched. The same two BRS guys did a deep dive on the new Kessil A360x. Your setup was one of their recommended combinations.

if you get the chance to post a shot of your tank under this combo, I would sure like to see how it looks.