I was just reading your build thread the other day. When did you switch away from the kessils?
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I switched my main display to halides last year when I rebooted the tank. It's more about reducing the number fixtures over my tank and I'm still old school when it comes to acropora. I love Kessil's and will always use them. I'm using all Kessil's over my unique nano system, which has two tanks tied together. The 25g has two 360x's and the 10g has a single 500x over it. I have pics of it in the Kessil sponsor section here on R2R. My move back to halides has nothing to do with Kessil's, but more with halides ability to light an area compared to LEDs (all LEDs). I know this will ruffle some feathers here, but LEDs are not the same as halides when it comes to spectrum, but I hope one day they will be? I don't deny LEDs ability to grow coral, but there's something special about halides (especially with acropora and clams) that I love and miss, so my move back to halides. As I mentioned earlier, (maybe here?) if I were to do all LED again over a larger tank, it would be a mix of Quanta Pro bars, Kessil's and Reefi's. I think those fixtures check all the boxes for me.
@minus9 I agree, yes, Halides are special in the fact of light coverage and intensity. I also believe that Acropora feed on many things including bacteria. I think the UV and other wavelengths of the MH destroy certain "bad" bacteria that LED cannot.
I mean people can get upset all they want, but it's a proven fact that a tank with Halides is much easier to maintain coral health than LED. If you get an Acropora that'd going downhill, you can put it under Halides and about 85% of the time, it will recover.
Okay so this keeps evolving. I bought a used t5
Fixture on the marketplace and new bulbs (2B+ and 2C+). The fixture gets here tomorrow. Maybe I’m just hyper fixated on lighting, but I swear my kessil 360x fan has gotten louder. It’s not loud like a 10 year old laptop, but I can hear the fan. It being a few feet from my desk in the office combined with 10 hour work days, is making me think I should pick up a new led for the hybrid. Still going to use the kessil on the hybrid for a bit to see what I like/don’t like. Also will give me time to shop and find the right deal.
So the question is, what led would you chose for a t5 hybrid system? For now I don’t want to pick up any supplemental bars. So I’m hoping the light is a good mix of growth and color pop. And I like shimmer. Also important, the system will be about 6-8” off the water, so the led can’t be 15” off the water to get enough spread.
Considerations so far for budget being around $250. (Would consider going a little above budget if the light was just that much better):
Fixture on the marketplace and new bulbs (2B+ and 2C+). The fixture gets here tomorrow. Maybe I’m just hyper fixated on lighting, but I swear my kessil 360x fan has gotten louder. It’s not loud like a 10 year old laptop, but I can hear the fan. It being a few feet from my desk in the office combined with 10 hour work days, is making me think I should pick up a new led for the hybrid. Still going to use the kessil on the hybrid for a bit to see what I like/don’t like. Also will give me time to shop and find the right deal.
So the question is, what led would you chose for a t5 hybrid system? For now I don’t want to pick up any supplemental bars. So I’m hoping the light is a good mix of growth and color pop. And I like shimmer. Also important, the system will be about 6-8” off the water, so the led can’t be 15” off the water to get enough spread.
Considerations so far for budget being around $250. (Would consider going a little above budget if the light was just that much better):
- New/lightly used noopsyche k7 pro v3
- Used kessil 360x
- Used hydra 26 or 32 probably
- (Above budget) New Reefi uno 2.0 pro
- (Above budget) kessil ap9x
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Stick with the Kessil. Do you clean the Kessil? Compressed air once a month goes a long way in keeping them happy. Which reminds me, time for me to clean mine. No other LED will give you shimmer like Kessil. Plus, if you ever change the mounting height, just pop on one of their lenses (55 or 35) depending on height.
Yea I got the setup used and it came with it. Actually took it apart yesterday and it looks like it hadn’t been cleaned probably ever. I’ll try this one for a bit and if I like it, may replace it with a newer one and sell the one I have for less with the louder fan disclosure.
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