@scuzy
Digging up an 'oldish' thread in hopes up see this. I currently have a 6' tank and am pretty sold on the LED/T5 combo, especially the Aquatic Life unit. That being said - I am being told by Ecotech CS that they would recommend for my tank the XR15Pro x 3. No XR30s, no T5.
Clearly I disagree with them, but I thought I would ask someone who has all three; do you still have this setup? Why did you pick both XR30s and XR15s? Assuming the choice to go with 2x36" units is because the 61" unit is too limiting?
Appreciate any feedback you could provide.
I'm running a 48" Aquatic Life Unit with 3 XR15Gen4Pros with diffusers over a 5' tank (59" to be precise). The very bottom sides are a bit darker than the rest of the tank (haven't measured PAR there yet), but otherwise I get very uniform coverage. Fixture is 10" above the water. I'd think you could get away with the 61" unit and either 4 XR15s or 2 XR30s (probably get more uniform coverage with 4 XR15s.). Unless you plan to run SPS all the way out to the very sides of the tank, you should be fine with this. The sides will give you a place to put any lower light corals. I'm running 2x blue plus, 1x coral plus and 1x actinic 8 hours/ day, with the Radions coming on at 7 am and not going off until 8:30 pm with long ramps on both the morning and evening. The peak of the Radions matches the T5s. The Radions run mostly an AB+ for that 8 hours, with a 1.5 hour peak at mid day of 12k light. I'm getting great growth and color from this setup.