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#4
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To be honest I think smaller tanks is where LEDs really shine (get it, shine, see what I did there?). The good ones are so bloody expensive that lighting a big tank properly can cost almost as much as an undergraduate degree. But on small tanks you have so many more options and the cost is way more justifiable I think. The key is a) not over-doing it, LEDs are more powerful than they seem and b) getting the mix of colours that will really make what you're keeping pop. The flat rack fixture came with the tank and was pretty basic, the colours looked good, but it was really dim looking and it was soooooo flimsy, I was afraid to touch it, it felt like a cheap kids toy. It still managed to bleach one of my ricordias to within an inch of it's life, but it didn't seem to have the pop to make other LPS look good. It was probably sufficient and since it came with the the $150 tank, it was an extremely good deal, it just wasn't for me. If you're looking at switching I can't speak highly enough of the kessil, one A150 would light a 7 gallon tank no problem, but you get no control over the brightness or colour mix so you have to make sure to buy the colour blend you like, or spend the extra cash for an A350 and turn the intensity way down. There's also some really cool PAR38 bulbs that are incorporating really innovative diode colour blends now too that could easily have enough power. But man I am in love with this Kessil. It's like having a metal halide over the tank, the shimmer is outrageous. There was barely any shimmer from the flat rack CADlights unit because the bulbs were evenly spaced across the fixture. Also the first two lights had noticeable colour separation, and the Kessil has zero. My only real complaint about the Kessil is the hanging options over such a small tank. I hate how massive the gooseneck is compared to the tank, and since my whole tank is only 10 inches front to back (7.5 inches of that is the display) I have to bend the gooseneck in such a way that the light is closer to the water surface than I want to get it to be properly centred over the box. Some sort of custom hanging situation would have been better, but I'm limited in that I can't put holes in the wall and the tank is sitting on a very small wheeled filing cabinet. |