I'm sick of radion. Need an alternative

[juanmanuelsanchez]

Hi all! To make the story short I have 3 G4 in my tank... They were working well until they started to fail all because of humidity or corrosion. Even with maintenance which I did every 6 months. The light stand is open so there is no way condensation is happening near. The ceiling is 6 meters high...

So I'm very disappointed with the quality of the lights and I'm looking for alternatives. Something with better build quality. Plus ecotech won't sell electronic parts. So you have to buy the whole light again.

Now lights are almost 1000 a piece... That 3K if I go with radion G6. And as I said I'm not sure the fixed the issues since the electronic are no isolated form cooling.

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Best regards.
Juan Manuel Sánchez.

 

[HankstankXXL750]

I don’t know anything about the radians but I love my Aqua Illuminations AI Hydras. I run 3 of the 32’s on my 110g and 3 64’s on my 210g. I use the mounting brackets and they are 12-18” above the water and I’ve had no problems. Had the first set since last May.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Juan, maybe a picture with your set up? With ceilings that high it shouldn't be so much of a problem unless you have an overall ambient humidity issue. But off the top of my head I can't think of a light that the electronics are sealed. LED's get hot so you need to flow air through them. But if you have a moisture problem no light is going to last. My advise is to address that, purchase some VGC used G4's for $300 each and switch them out. that way you are not going to shock your corals with a different LED fixture.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

There are a bunch of good fixtures that are criminally underrepresented, especially in the states.
Have a look at GNC and LaniLeds, I would rate both higher than radions.
Some more well known options would be GHL mitras, ati stratons and Philips coral care.

Personally I’m not giving up my T5’s and are running a giesemann aurora v8 1500 pro which also is a beast of a fixture…looks great to boot.

 

[paul01609]

I went from radion to Ati straton more than happy

 

[Richard baker]

All you have to do is send the unit in and they will repair it for a fee I have done this on two of my gen 4 s

 

[Jon's Reef]

The G4 has the fan on the bottom which pulls air up and into the fixture. If there is consistent salt spray this could become a significant issue.

Starting with G5, the fan is on the top blowing air down, through the fixture, then out the sides. This may reduce the humidity/ corrosion issue.

The Neptune Sky has the fans on top blowing down (air exits down along the edge of the fixture) which may also help.

Straton, CoralCare, GNC have no fans.

 

[RedoubtReef]

have you considered a T5 setup or a halide/T5 combo? No more worry about the built in obsolescence of LED fixtures.

 

[djf91]

Try some Halides if you’ve never used them before. You may be surprised. What are the dimensions of the tank?

 

[TL1]

I had the same experience with Radions. I moved to Philips Coral Care lights. The only downside is that they cannot be mounted to the tank. Also, with high intensity the light is a cool white. So if you like blues, youll have to settle for less PAR. Blues still look great in the morning/evening. They're pretty affordable too.

 

[neonreef3d]

there has been a great deal of changes beween the G4 and the G5 as far as electronics. If you want to change out for new lights, there are other options, one thing to look for is the warranty and what the downtime is if the fixture ever needs to be serviced by the factory... I say buy from a reputable company that has a location in the US to reduce the time, and shipping cost on the unit.... Doing your research on that may minimize your options, but if anything does happen, you wont be out for too long.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Kessil. The lights are amazing. The app sucks.

 

[PeterErc]

Dayum sorry to hear about your unfortunate luck. Like other said try halides. Reading threads like this keeps me away from LED fixtures. I will pay extra for electricity and gladly swap out bulbs instead of swapping out 3k in fixtures

 

[juanmanuelsanchez]

Well the problem is that I don't live in the US so any durability issue is a real issue for me because I have to send everything back to the US... I live in Costa Rica BTW.

My tank is 150X75X50 (all in cm) capacity 124 gallons and the sump is 100X40X40 (all in cm) capacity 60 gallons

I was thinking in this lights https://reefbreeders.com/shop/photon-50-v2-pro/

But I don't know how good they are... I'm attaching a Pic of my tank as it is at the moment. The radions you see are running on fumes I have to tweak the intensities to avoid a automatic turn off because of a corrosion circuit.

Thanks to all for the help!

 

[Harold999]

have you considered a T5 setup or a halide/T5 combo? No more worry about the built in obsolescence of LED fixtures.

Yeah, no more worries about replacing the bulbs every year...

 

[jerl77]

Tried all the leds on the market
Always fall back to go old t5

 

[rtparty]

The Coral Care might be a good option if you can hang the lights. No fans or exposed electronics to worry about

 

[Jekyl]

My next lighting setup will be a T5 hybrid with kessil.

 

[Ashish Patel]

OH man thats crazy, I have my 2 radions gen4 in the basement for 2 years without a dehumidifier and humidity was always 70-90%+ but they never skipped a beat! Both running now for 5 years without issues. The radions by themselves do not give enough spread (Unless your warren buffet who can afford 6-10 of them), so I only use them with T5 bulbs. In your location and situation I would just get 4 rows of T5 and add a LED just for look and dawn dusk effect. T5 enhance the short coming of every other light on the market, and probably only light that has no weakness in terms of performance should one use them exclusively.

 

[JachPot]

My next lighting setup will be a T5 hybrid with kessil.

I'm doing SmatFarms LED and T5 (4 bulb) combo on my 200. Super excited to hang the fixture this weekend!