I agree! Have a lot of positive experience with them over reef tanks and have been wanting to try over a planted since I heard about the Amazon Sun release!
Looks like a nice start but get rid of those green hoses man!
Haha, yeah it's in the works. Trying to find a glass system that'll work with the 2217.
Awesome! I'm doing a same light, but only 12g and the fixture is an inch above the water. Sounds like a recipe for disaster but well see since the height of my tank is high. :x
Problem with 1" above the water is going to be coverage, LED's like to be fairly high off the water for best results (I run LED's on both my reef tanks). Oh, and that's not to mention the possibility for water damage
This looks like it is going to be a COOL TANK!
Those lights are VERY COOL!!! HUGE amounts of light in such a tiny pkg! They are the perfect light for cubes! I am a big fan of cubes, so I am subscribed for sure!
Good Luck!
Drew
p.s. Are there many good Planted tank shops in Houston? I have some family around there, and we will be going to see them in a few months, so I would love to know about any good shops! Thanks!
Thanks a bunch!! Honestly I got into the hobby as a reefer and really only dabble in planted, so I am not a connoisseur of planted shops and really know more about good coral / reef shops. IME City Pets has a good selection of both FW and SW, as does Fish Gallery (though their prices are wicked high most of the time).
Ditto love cubes myself so will be watching this to see how it progresses.
Thanks a bunch!! I'm personally a huge cube fan myself, I love the unique look and scape possibilities that come with all that additional depth.
Hey we have the same setup (I don't have a journal yet). I have the Mr Aqua 25g 18" cube and the Kessil light. I've been setup for over 6 months now and one word of advice, GO DIRECT CO2! Don't make the mistake I made and try for low tech when the light is ultra high tech. It just doesn't work and it's hard to keep the algae in check. I had to learn the hard way and give into getting cO2. I'm a lot happier now and the plants are doing well and algae (specifically bba) is getting back in line.
Not to get down on your fauna but just make sure you don't over stock because 25g isn't huge. Also an angel fish and high grade shrimp might not be the best combo but I'm sure it's been done before. But I'm sure you'll nail it
Thanks for the feedback!! I'll have to look into the angel / shrimp combo, I didn't know it was a possible issue. I'm still mixed on CO2 though. The first planted tank I setup for someone about 2-yrs ago has been low-tech from the start and grows plants faster than I can keep up with pruning. Never any algae, just good growth and happy fish. Given that success doesn't motivate me to add the extra clutter to this tank, but we will see what happens with time
My first planted tank:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=136581&page=2
I'd suggest moving all the lighting and plumbing to the back :thumbsup:
Liking the gooseneck clamp-- I'd have gone for one myself if my tank weren't so deep in width.
Haha, as I noted in the OP the paint was still drying on the back hence everything being setup on the sides. As of today it's all cleaned up and moved to the back
And honestly the cube choice was mostly driven by the choice of light, a rectangle just wouldn't have gotten the right coverage.
I just sold my kessil a few weeks ago. It outputs a lot of light, though the falloff is pretty significant about a foot away from the source. Also, the shimmer effect if surface agitation is high is like seizure inducing. And yes, it sounds like a quiet computer on.
The 18" cube is honestly perfect for coverage due to this fact, the Kessil is good for about 20-22" of coverage on X-Y-Z axis. I honestly chose the light first on this build and made tank choice based on that
Shimmer definitely has more "disco ball" to it than the nice smooth shimmer of an MH (and lack of shimmer with T5), but the Kessil is actually very good in this respect for LED. I've seen some fixtures with spread LED's that make me want to throw up. I've been running LED's on my reef tanks for about 1.5-yrs now so the shimmer doesn't bug me anymore, though it did take me about a month to get used to originally. And as far as the noise, I don't even notice it compared to skimmers, chillers, powerheads, etc in a reef tank, LOL!
This cube is dead quiet to me