- Hey, it's Thomas here.
And today we're going to be checking
out Kessil's AP9X light fixture.
I'm pretty excited about this.
We've already taken a look at the a360x Tuna Blue
as well as the refugium led
And now we're going to check out Kessil's answer
to lighting standard 18 inch to 24 inch wide tanks.
Also, the wifi chip is built into this one
which solves the dongle gripe I had
with the previous lights.
Dongle gripe.
That sounds really weird, but I digress.
Like I've said in the past, Kessil has been
around the block more than a few times now
and has been making phenomenal reef lighting options
that not only grow gorgeous corals
but also make it really easy for reefers to do
with virtually no way to get spectrum wrong,
even when dialing in a light
to our own individual preferences,
they also have what is widely considered to be
the best metal halide light shimmer around
with no color separation,
a nice, wide even distribution
of light and more recently introduced wifi app control.
The AP9X is Kessil's answer
to reefers, looking for a single fixture to
illuminate a standard rectangular aquarium,
somewhere between 30 and 48 inches in length
and around 18 to 24 inches in width.
Now that's not to say that reefers with custom
or modern accordion setups wouldn't want to get
in on this AP9X action since let's face it.
This light fixture has a few great perks
that their puck shaped pendants don't.
But before we get into all that, it's time for the unboxing.
In the box you'll find the AP9X, the Meanwell power supply,
the hanging brackets and screw hooks
as well as a QR code stickers
a Kessil sticker to represent your Kessil pride,
a warranty card, and the quick-start guide.
The AP9X in essence is a pair of 360 X tuna blues
in a single very sleek hoverboard-esque housing
drawing around the same 180 Watts
from the wall that a pair of 360 Xs would.
It comes in at only 5.7 inches wide
and just over 16 inches long and is pretty dang thin
at under 1.5 inches thick and easily
one of the slickest looking reef led lights
that are currently available. While it does
share the same X series dense matrix led arrays, mouthful.
You will notice the optics are actually slightly elliptical
which is what gives the AP9X it's unique
rectangular spread.
That is well-suited
for covering standard rectangular aquariums
between three inches and 48 inches in length
and certainly capable of keeping SPS tanks
with a 36 by 18 inch footprint or mixed reefs
with a 48 by 18 inch footprint, happy and healthy.
But I'll also tell you how we would use this light
including mounting height and spectrum
in just a little bit.
The AP9X has some great mounting options
including an upgrade
to a single mounting arm over its predecessor,
The AP 700, right out of the box you're going to
get the standard pack of triangular hanging brackets
and screw hooks for mounting it inside
of the canopy or for your own DIY hanging solution.
Kessil also has a hanging kit available
if you prefer to pick something
up that is prefabricated for you.
The Mount that I'm most excited
about is the new AP9X specific tank Mount
for using a single mounting arm to
get this slick fixture attached to your tank.
It has everything we love about the A series arms
but does it in a single arm rather than a pair of arms
like the AP 700, which is really going to speak
to those who prefer to keep things
as minimalist and clean, looking as possible.
The AP9X arm also gives you 60 degrees of tilt.
So you can position the light perfectly
for your Aquascape or to decrease any light spill.
You can also use a pair of A series arms for the AP9X
and while they don't offer the tilt of the other mount
they do offer better distribution of the weight
of the light fixture on the glass for tanks
with thinner panels, which might be an advantage
to some of us that have thinner standard aquariums.
I will say though, this fixture is extremely light.
(loud bell)
So even with a single arm
it's not going to put much pressure on your tank.
So the AP9X specific arm is definitely
the one I would choose for mounting this light.
While the lens and reflector design
on the AP9X is different from the 360 X models.
It still boasts the same bold, beautiful,
halide-esque shimmer lines and color blending.
What the elliptical AP9X lens and reflector combo
do differently is distribute the light
from those dense matrix LED arrays
in a wide rectangular shape with emphasis
on getting more light out to the sides
which not only spreads the light out very well
over that rectangular area, but also intentionally cools
down that hot spot between the two intersecting
arrays in the middle of the fixture.
So you don't end up
with a super hotspot directly underneath the light resulting
in a more uniform spread side to side
which is going to work very well for tanks that are
between that three to four feet in length
but only 18 inches or so wide
like your standard 40 breeder or 75 gallon tank.
The AP9X's spectrum is going to be very familiar
since it is essentially a pair of 360 X tuna blues
providing a fantastic wide band in the blue spectrum
between 400 and 500 nanometers with some added
near U V as well as red and green diodes.
This spectrum that this fixture can produce has grown
as some jaw-dropping quarrels with the BRS 160
and the WWC BRS hybrid tanks being great examples
of the results that you can achieve.
One of my favorite parts
about Kessil's approach to spectrum is their Kessil logic.
It basically allows you to tune the color
of the light fixture from either more blue
to more white to suit your personal taste
while knowing no matter where it lands, you've
got a solid spectrum to grow healthy, colorful corals.
It just makes dialing in the fixture so easy to get, right.
And it's one of the reasons so many reefers have success
with Kessil lights, with minimal effort on that note.
The AP9X does have all
of the controllability you could possibly need built right
into the fixture, including wifi connectivity.
So you can program your light through the Kessil app.
Yes. One of my sort of gripes with the 360 X was
that you needed to buy a dongle separately to
use it with the app
but Kessil made sure to have that connectivity built right
into the AP9X along with K Link ports,
So you can link up other X series lights
to your AP9X using K Link cables
and share that connectivity
and control without the need for a dongle.
The app allows you to control the color ratio
of blue to white, the overall intensity, the UV red
and green channels, as well as set up a daily schedule
moonlighting, storm effects, the whole shebang.
But if that isn't quite your jam
there is also very slick on board control
with a set of backlit touch capacitive buttons.
So you can even run it on a simple wall timer
and just dial in your preferred spectrum and intensity.
Now Kessil didn't stop there.
If you wanted a nice middle ground
between wifi control and on board control
it is also compatible with the Spectral Controller X
which gives you more advanced control
without a wifi connection, as well
as zero to 10 volt control.
If you prefer to have all
of your gear running on an external aquarium controller
like an Apex, Profilux, or Hydros,
there is no shortage of options here.
You get them all, dealers choice.
Now as promised let's dig into how we
at BRS would use these lights.
First off, for best spread performance.
We found mounting the light
at 10 inches off the water is the sweet spot.
And for spectrum, the color channel set to 20,
UV set to a hundred, red set to 20, and green set to 0,
produced a great spectrum that we were happy with.
Now, while it is hard to achieve a flat spread
of SPS dominated par numbers for a 24 inch
by 24 inch or even 48 by 24 inch set up
using just a single or pair of AP9X fixtures,
they are going to be a fantastic option for mixed reefs
with enough par for SPS near the top and middle
of the tank and zones of lower par for LPS and softies
in the front of the tank, even the back of the tank
as well as lower down near the sand bed.
However, if you have a standard 40 breeder
65 gallon, 75 gallon, 90 gallon
basically any standard tank that is about 18 inches front
to back, this light provides a much more even coverage
which makes sense.
Given it's designed with those rectangular optics
making it much more suitable
for an SPS dominated tank in those scenarios
which makes perfect sense since that is in essence
what Kessil designed this fixture to do.
If Kessil's AP9X matches your reefing mantra
and you want to take one out for yourself
or rather your corals,
you can go ahead and click right here.
That spot where the arrow is pointing.