I haven't seen a Kessil in action since, but when I was at MACNA in 2012 the Kessil stood out to me as one of the worst for the disco effect. I'm not sure if they've changed lenses or anything - I haven't kept up.

I haven't seen an AI Prime turned on either, but of all the LEDs I've had experience, I like the AI Hydras the best (over Radion and Hydra even), and the Prime is similar.

Holy molly those are complete Kessil ripoffs. I am wondering why Kessil didn't sue them yet.

Thanks for the suggestion Nick but they seem to only have 100W and that would burn any small tank :P

Mr. H! You mentioned that you are now in the employ of an LED manufacturer.... asking a lot of questions on what LED light to get??? You should be the expert advising the rest of us!!

Funnin' aside, have you considered DIY? My home built multi-chip fixture is still going strong after quite a few years of use now. No lenses, no disco effect that I'm aware of... check out link below if you haven't already seen the build thread.

Same goes for skimmer, don't discount DIY & old school tech. I'm still rockin' with a wooden air diffuser powered home built that came with my used tank. Low power, quiet (dependent on air pump) and as efficient as any of the new fangled stuff out there. Granted, it is located beside the display, but I have a good drain on the cup going into a 2 liter pop bottle & a bucket just in case, although never had an overflow on the floor yet.

Haha. Well that's the reason, in technical terms, kessil made more sense to me and will probably be going that way. But it is always nice to get input from people about their experience with individual fixtures and sometimes, numbers and real life experience varies. Plus I work in a completely different market which is very far away from aquarium industry :razz:

Appreciate your input. DIY would probably be easy to assemble/make since I have access to LED chips from high CRI bins and the equipment needed but getting everything sorted out will probably be more tiresome than its worth putting the effort for such a small tank. Bigger tanks: definitely worth the effort. If I can DIY, it will definitely be a great experience and now that you have mentioned, I will probably give some thoughts to it :) Same goes for the DIY skimmer. Thanks :mrgreen:

I get the disco effect but only when YMCA's playing in the background :rainbowa:
But seriously, no disco like my last 2 LEDs... The Maxspect Razor had disco until I put a single layer of ziploc baggy over them... and same with the Evergrow until I put half pong pong balls over each LED. The Prime has needed no mods. It appears they've began to realize what I figured out a couple years ago that LEDs need to be slightly diffused (no clear lenses) so the Prime has slightly cloudy lenses. I can only speak for these 2 though as I haven't owned a Radion or Kessil...

I have been running Kessil a360 on my sps tank for almost two years and I can confirm they are the closest light to m/h out there . They give off zero disco effect and will grow anything. Not sure what you saw at MACNA but it sound like you might be mixing them up with some other led . I also run a ai prime on my frag tank in my sump and I can tell you it would drive me nuts if that light was in my main it is full on disco. I would have bought a Kessil 160 but my space was limited so I went with the ai and after all it is in my sump .

Not sure what kessil's older model was but their LED chips layout that they implement in the current fixtures should have little to none disco effect. Most of the LEDs on the market comes with individual optics on each LEDs and that causes (along with other factors like water surface refraction and so on) the disco effect. But lens have come a long way over the last few years so I guess the newer fixtures, like AI prime, will probably have less disco effect compared to older fixtures. I looked at some AI prime videos and I can clearly see what colours of LEDs the fixture have on the sandbed; the camera probably picks these up more than what can be seen but still, its there. I am yet to see a kessil video that shows individual colours on sandbed.

:lol:

Yes frosted optics and lens helps diffuse the beams thus mixing the colour better. You should have contacted acted earlier and contacted those manufacturers to get the frosted optics/lens going :D I think maxspect razor had the worst disco effect that I have seen until now.

Thanks for the information. Finally someone with both the fixtures I am comparing (well I am planning on getting 160we but its the same layout as a360). Really appreciate your input :) I guess I won't be disturbing my sleep tonight thinking which fixture to get :mrgreen:

I took a quick look at these. Can you buy these anywhere? Their website is surprisingly unhelpful in this regard as to who sells them or even their ballpark pricing. I'm guessing importing them might be an issue..

Over other forums, people said that you can save around $100 to $150 on these compared to a360. Couldn't find anyone from Canada who carries them.

So a quick update.

Tank has been ordered. I went slighting smaller with all side starfire, polishes edges and 3 compartment AIO. For lights, I have kessil a160we on the way. For skimmer, aquamaxx ws-1; extremely overkill for the size of the tank but I wanted to make sure the tank has enough skimming power. The return pump will be an ehime compact 1000. The flow will be covered by an rw4. the stand will be a DIY (simple as last time but I will cover it with carbon fiber 3M to match it with the black silicon). For RODI, aquasafe 100GPH portable RODI.

The toughest part will probably be finding the live rocks that I need. Anyone knows where I can find branching/plating LR (actual LR)? Thanks :)

Talk to Dave at bigshow. If he can't help you get them I can