Tuna Sun Kessil 500x coming soon?

[Daniel]

I have a deeper aquarium so getting light all the down has been an issue. But if there is a Tuna Sun version of the new 185 W Kessil 500X in the works, I think my problem will be solved. Currently only the reef friendly Tuna Blue is being released and it is tailored for SPS corals.

[Lemon]

I saw this on a reefbuilders video. have you thought of using metal halides? I think a lot of public reef aquariums use them so if you could find the right bulb it might be a good option.

[Daniel]

3 minutes ago, quirkylemon103 said:

I saw this on a reefbuilders video. have you thought of using metal halides? I think a lot of public reef aquariums use them so if you could find the right bulb it might be a good option.

I originally used metal halides on this aquarium for a couple of years but metal halides are very noisy and this aquarium serves as room divider between the livingroom and diningroom of our house so back in the late 2000's when large powerful LEDs became available I switched to those. At least LEDs are quite.

[gardenman]

Have you considered an LED light bar like those made for off-road vehicles? You can get them up to 52" wide (possibly even wider) with impressive wattages (300 watts or more) and an insane amount of lumens (27,000 or more aren't uncommon) in a combination of spot and flood light configurations. You need a 12 volt power source for them, but that's pretty doable. Most are already weather-proof since they're made for vehicles. Amazon has a Yitamotor one that's 52" long, uses 300 watts, provides 27,000 lumen of a combined spot and flood light pattern and is 6,000 degrees kelvin for under $90. (You can find some at 6500 degrees kelvin also.) The spotlight lenses should give you decent penetration while the flood light lenses should give you better overall illumination. I've never tried one in a tank, but I've been tempted. They seem to offer the most bang for the buck in LED lighting these days. In terms of the amount of light given off for the dollar spent, a light bar is hard to beat. 

[Daniel]

14 hours ago, gardenman said:

Have you considered an LED light bar like those made for off-road vehicles? You can get them up to 52" wide (possibly even wider) with impressive wattages (300 watts or more) and an insane amount of lumens (27,000 or more aren't uncommon) in a combination of spot and flood light configurations. You need a 12 volt power source for them, but that's pretty doable. Most are already weather-proof since they're made for vehicles. Amazon has a Yitamotor one that's 52" long, uses 300 watts, provides 27,000 lumen of a combined spot and flood light pattern and is 6,000 degrees kelvin for under $90. (You can find some at 6500 degrees kelvin also.) The spotlight lenses should give you decent penetration while the flood light lenses should give you better overall illumination. I've never tried one in a tank, but I've been tempted. They seem to offer the most bang for the buck in LED lighting these days. In terms of the amount of light given off for the dollar spent, a light bar is hard to beat. 

I had not even thought of that. I will look into that. I know those lights can be as you say insanely bright. Thanks for the heads up.

[gardenman]

1 hour ago, Daniel said:

I had not even thought of that. I will look into that. I know those light can be as you say insanely bright. Thanks for the heads up.

It's an interesting option. The most powerful Fluval 3.0 only uses 59 watts. The Kessil 500X uses 185 watts. To light a longish tank you'd need multiple Kessil lights. While more watts don't always mean more light, it's about the best comparison we have these days with LED lights.  With a light bar you lose programmability, adjusting the spectrum, and more of the fancy stuff, but you get a whole lot of light for the money. And for me, I don't play with that stuff anyway. I just light the tanks. The lightbars give you both wide angle and spotlight lenses. In theory, the spotlight lenses should focus light deeper into the tank while the wide angle lenses give you overall lighting. It's something else to consider when looking for a powerful light. It would be interesting to know if you could disassemble a light bar and rearrange the lenses to better suit your needs. They typically cluster the spot light lenses in the middle of the bar and the flood light lenses outside.  A more balanced arrangement might be better for an aquarium light.

[Tetra Guy]

Im running a single Tuna Sun on my 15g tall. I have to say its lived up to the advertising. Plants are healthy and less algae compared to tanks with other lamps, same schedule and water conditions. The only problem is it is a spot light. Illuminating a wide tank would be costly. 

[Patrick_G]

@Daniel, That looks really interesting. It’s sort of hard to tell from the diagram, but it looks like you could light a 4’ tank with only one of those with the 110 degree reflector.