60" Lighting Change

[hobbyreefer]

I have a 60"x26"x24" sps only tank. The tank is ~3 years old and has always ran 48" Aquatic Life T5 hybrid + 5 Kessil a360x. I've decided to switch the Kessil's for Gen 5 Radions. I need help determining how many Radions I will need to replace the 5 a360x.

For now I plan on keeping the t5s but one day I might go 100% LED.

2 XR30 plus the 4 T5s?

3 XR30 plus 4 T5s?

3 XR15?
4 XR15?
5 XR15?

Goal is a ton of light output for acropora.

Secondary goal maybe remove a couple cords.

Third goal maybe drop the T5s one day.

Currently, I can grow Monti, Digi, Anacropora, Birdsnest, etc fine. But all Acropora except Green Slimmer and an Area 51 just stay as nubs and then brown out...

I'm trying to rule out the Kessils being the issue.

Thoughts?

 

[stephj03]

IMO you would need to do a 1:1 swap of the Kessils to XR15s. They pretty similar wattage.

If it were me and budget were not a concern and you wanted to lose the T5. I'd swap to 4-5 XR30.
But that would be for a goal was to advance from non staghorn/bird's-nest/Pocci/Stylo/digi to keeping mostly high light Acros.

 

[jda]

I would do 3 of the xr30s or 5 of the xr15s. Take this with a grain of salt, though, since I don't use Radions over my acropora, but if I did, I would replace each MH in a 2x2 (ish) area with a pair of xr30s, so I like a ton of light. If you need them to punch down that low, you might need more.

Consider Photon V2. Some of the best acropora tanks that I have ever seen are with Photon V2.