Moving from radion back to T5in SPS dominated tank (poll inside)

Good or bad idea?


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Da8

Da8

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Ed nailed this in the first reply... I am also only into acropora and only apply this to keeping them...

It goes like this...
Step 1: some people believe the crap that shops, stores and shills can really get good results out of LEDs alone for acropora, or that each type of light can do the same thing.
Step 2: after a while, and once they get to a higher level of reefing awareness, they see the issues and add a few T5s
Step 3: the reefer is amazed by the difference a few makes
Step 4: start to wonder what will happen if they add more T5s since people that they never wanted to listen to have always tried to tell them that they were better for acropora... and they saw what only a few did
Step 5: they change the paradigm and start to have the T5 do the heavy lifting and keep around some LEDs to satisfy their hunger for thunderstorms and black light
Step 6: become less dependent on the LEDs at all since now they don't need them to make their corals look good when you "blue it up"... they just look good all the time now that you have better lighting.

I will also totally contend that the oft-mentioned coastal reef shops are only really impressive to those who are in step 1 mentioned above. Each time that I go, I only think: man... this could be so much better. Then, I remember that they are building/running a business and have different goals than us and catering the needs of people in Step 1 is amongst the highest priority for them. Their tanks are middling level for acropora hobbyists, and that is ok... they are not hobbyists.

Seriously, just skip to the end if you want to really work in Acropora, and work well. I would strongly recommend a 48" T5 fixture and then get some LED light bars for each end - that would look better and the ReefBrites (if you can get them in Spain) pop better than Kessils do, IMO.


Been reefing for more than 10 years, always with T5.
But because my tank was a cube, I switched to led, and I don't regret this years.
But have never forgot what T5 are and do. And I don't think led are a bad source of light either. Just than T5 for my setup is for sure better. But got no science to prove it.



Using a 48" T5 fixture would double or more the budget (the 36" is way cheaper due to excepcional causes)
And there would be little space for any additional bar, or similar.
therefor the idea of using the extra space on each side to use kessil. .

The use would be 8hours T5full. 2 hours dimming t5 (1rise and 1 sunrise) and 12 hours kessil with white peak
But maybe is not as good idea as I think.


The kessil thing.

I like kessil on the paper. Blue specter seems to be perfect for the fluorences and bringing up more colors, but seen many people use SB or reefbrite.

For me would difficult to find them, but could find them hopefully.

Is there so much difference?

Thank you all for your replies. You are really helpful
20191119_174057.jpg


sorry for the quality, quick pic just as is getting dark...(or blue)
 

ScottB

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Ed nailed this in the first reply... I am also only into acropora and only apply this to keeping them...

It goes like this...
Step 1: some people believe the crap that shops, stores and shills can really get good results out of LEDs alone for acropora, or that each type of light can do the same thing.
Step 2: after a while, and once they get to a higher level of reefing awareness, they see the issues and add a few T5s
Step 3: the reefer is amazed by the difference a few makes
Step 4: start to wonder what will happen if they add more T5s since people that they never wanted to listen to have always tried to tell them that they were better for acropora... and they saw what only a few did
Step 5: they change the paradigm and start to have the T5 do the heavy lifting and keep around some LEDs to satisfy their hunger for thunderstorms and black light
Step 6: become less dependent on the LEDs at all since now they don't need them to make their corals look good when you "blue it up"... they just look good all the time now that you have better lighting.

I will also totally contend that the oft-mentioned coastal reef shops are only really impressive to those who are in step 1 mentioned above. Each time that I go, I only think: man... this could be so much better. Then, I remember that they are building/running a business and have different goals than us and catering the needs of people in Step 1 is amongst the highest priority for them. Their tanks are middling level for acropora hobbyists, and that is ok... they are not hobbyists.

Seriously, just skip to the end if you want to really work in Acropora, and work well. I would strongly recommend a 48" T5 fixture and then get some LED light bars for each end - that would look better and the ReefBrites (if you can get them in Spain) pop better than Kessils do, IMO.

I guess I am at step 5.5.

My acros were OK after 2 years of LED. But they went nuts after I switched to 8 X 80 watt T5. The difference was astounding. In six months my daily 2-part went from 60ml to 140ml (I know, I know, time for CaRx).

But here is the thing, I really do miss SOME shimmer and pop. So, on to my question after context...

My display is prominently placed, so aesthetics matter. I could probably get a reefbrite past the Aesthetic Police officer who patrols the area IF I installed one on the backside of my 60" ATI workhorse. Will a single, rear mounted, XHO Reefbrite accomplish much visually or not?
 

Bpb

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I'm not going to get into debates about lighting.............if you think WWC are expert acro growers then that's cool...............I'm of a totally different opinion. I gave my suggestions to the OP and I'll leave it at that.
Agree 100%. It’s generally just not a good plan to try and mimic a commercial coral retailer in a home tank. A retailer has a responsibility to promote and maintain brand relationships with other companies. They also have writeoffs.
I’m not going to sit here and say they’re BAD at growing coral. But what I WILL say is you do not have a staff of people feeding your fish an amount of food comparable to what they’d receive in the wild, while testing many parameters multiple times a day and keeping them perfect.
 

Guttersnipe

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T5 to do the heavy lifting and LED for supplementation and shimmer is going to make you very happy.

Most have it backwards with the LEDs as the dominant light source and T5 as supplements. The only reason this became popular is that so many people piled their $ into those LED boxes only to find out they needed T5.

I'm mainly speaking for acropora dominant systems........notice I didn't say sps.
Very true
 

hart24601

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Hi, think here will be better, than on others thread (sorry)



I have 3 radion G4proXR30 + 2 T5 to reduce shadows.

Would like to switch to 8x39 t5 (main source of light) and support it with 4 tuna blue 160 (one on each corner)

Is going back to T5 but with that extra blue that kessils (and led) give so well.


What are you thoughts?

Thank you all!! :D

I may have missed it, but what are you hoping to improve or change? Lots of folks happy to puff out and say 'this is the best, anyone with any experience knows that!' but the combo you have is really solid. Any pics? You will probably be able to get the results you are after be it increased growth or color with chemistry and other changes since you already have t5 and radions. I mean I get it, it's fun to try and push the tank a little more and it's nice to think spending more money will get it there - but my unpopular opinion is that it won't.

Edit I missed the picture earlier. Very nice system! Looks like things have been going pretty well so far.
 
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Zach W

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Agree 100%. It’s generally just not a good plan to try and mimic a commercial coral retailer in a home tank. A retailer has a responsibility to promote and maintain brand relationships with other companies. They also have writeoffs.
I’m not going to sit here and say they’re BAD at growing coral. But what I WILL say is you do not have a staff of people feeding your fish an amount of food comparable to what they’d receive in the wild, while testing many parameters multiple times a day and keeping them perfect.
Yes I agree with all of this. I was simply stating that there are multiple ways to keep a healthy acro dominant tank, LED being one of them. Obviously WWC has business interest that us hobbiests don’t. This is not the only acro dominant tank I have seen with LED only lighting, many hobbies tanks as well. All I’m saying is there is multiple ways to skin a cat, and that doesn’t make one wrong.
 

blstravler

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Ed nailed this in the first reply... I am also only into acropora and only apply this to keeping them...

It goes like this...
Step 1: some people believe the crap that shops, stores and shills can really get good results out of LEDs alone for acropora, or that each type of light can do the same thing.
Step 2: after a while, and once they get to a higher level of reefing awareness, they see the issues and add a few T5s
Step 3: the reefer is amazed by the difference a few makes
Step 4: start to wonder what will happen if they add more T5s since people that they never wanted to listen to have always tried to tell them that they were better for acropora... and they saw what only a few did
Step 5: they change the paradigm and start to have the T5 do the heavy lifting and keep around some LEDs to satisfy their hunger for thunderstorms and black light
Step 6: become less dependent on the LEDs at all since now they don't need them to make their corals look good when you "blue it up"... they just look good all the time now that you have better lighting.

I will also totally contend that the oft-mentioned coastal reef shops are only really impressive to those who are in step 1 mentioned above. Each time that I go, I only think: man... this could be so much better. Then, I remember that they are building/running a business and have different goals than us and catering the needs of people in Step 1 is amongst the highest priority for them. Their tanks are middling level for acropora hobbyists, and that is ok... they are not hobbyists.

Seriously, just skip to the end if you want to really work in Acropora, and work well. I would strongly recommend a 48" T5 fixture and then get some LED light bars for each end - that would look better and the ReefBrites (if you can get them in Spain) pop better than Kessils do, IMO.

This is exactly what I went through and I am now at step 6 and couldn’t be happier. I use a ATI non dimming 48in 6x54w Fixture with 1 RB Lumi Light Pro Plus on the front of the fixture. Par is very even. The other thing I would say is with the ATI fixtures you get very good Customer Support and you can get any parts you need and fix it yourself. Something I’m very happy with after my experiences with Aqua Illumination support.
 

Bpb

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Yes I agree with all of this. I was simply stating that there are multiple ways to keep a healthy acro dominant tank, LED being one of them. Obviously WWC has business interest that us hobbiests don’t. This is not the only acro dominant tank I have seen with LED only lighting, many hobbies tanks as well. All I’m saying is there is multiple ways to skin a cat, and that doesn’t make one wrong.

you’re right I wasn’t taking issue with what you said personally as much as I was just kind of agreeing with @Big E in the fact that hobbyist and retailer are very different. I think the biggest glaring difference people don’t pay attention to when seeing these retailer raceway filled rooms with 200 radion panels is they’re selling plugs. These lights are sustaining 2-3 zoas per plug, lps colonies, and little sps booger sized frags.

Yes they look pretty. But they’re not illuminating basketball sized bottlebrush acros and stage intertwined among dinner plate size millies. You CAN do it. But you basically have to cover the entire footprint of the tank with diodes. Not this 3 radions per 8‘x4’ raceway Situation they have going on the holding tanks for retail sales.

I think that is the spirit of the discussion
 

Daniel Waters

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@Da8 I think you can get by fine with the 36" fixture for your tank. Yes, there will be some drop off on par on the edges, but if you're going to go with 8 bulbs of T5 and supplement with the A160s, you should have no problem getting enough par throughout the whole tank. In fact, I don't think you need the kessils at all with an 8 bulb fixture. Another consideration might be a 4 bulb or 6 bulb fixture and do an LED bar on each side. I would recommend an LED bar over the kessils (and I even use kessils, and I am not knocking them). The led bar will give you more uniform coverage, more par I suspect than the A160s, and can still provide you some shimmer. The orphek led bars are a nice cost effective option to pair with the T5s. I think a 4 bulb T5 unit with an LED bar on each side would probably still give you enough light, although I'd definitely do a 6 bulb unit with a bar on each side if you can fit it.
 

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Ed nailed this in the first reply... I am also only into acropora and only apply this to keeping them...

It goes like this...
Step 1: some people believe the crap that shops, stores and shills can really get good results out of LEDs alone for acropora, or that each type of light can do the same thing.
Step 2: after a while, and once they get to a higher level of reefing awareness, they see the issues and add a few T5s
Step 3: the reefer is amazed by the difference a few makes
Step 4: start to wonder what will happen if they add more T5s since people that they never wanted to listen to have always tried to tell them that they were better for acropora... and they saw what only a few did
Step 5: they change the paradigm and start to have the T5 do the heavy lifting and keep around some LEDs to satisfy their hunger for thunderstorms and black light
Step 6: become less dependent on the LEDs at all since now they don't need them to make their corals look good when you "blue it up"... they just look good all the time now that you have better lighting.

I will also totally contend that the oft-mentioned coastal reef shops are only really impressive to those who are in step 1 mentioned above. Each time that I go, I only think: man... this could be so much better. Then, I remember that they are building/running a business and have different goals than us and catering the needs of people in Step 1 is amongst the highest priority for them. Their tanks are middling level for acropora hobbyists, and that is ok... they are not hobbyists.

Seriously, just skip to the end if you want to really work in Acropora, and work well. I would strongly recommend a 48" T5 fixture and then get some LED light bars for each end - that would look better and the ReefBrites (if you can get them in Spain) pop better than Kessils do, IMO.
Well said.
 

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I’d argue one of the best and heaviest acro dominant tanks is run by @TopShelfAquatics. My wife went and visited their farm and she told me they run nothing but LEDs.
 
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Love the poll results.

I guess that for the quality of new fixture, won't be a problem.

I've got some issues with led lighting as main source of light.

1st: Hability to spread the light. Except kessil, which makes more "uniform" beams of light, radion and others create focused light that goes direct to the coral, not mixing 100% with the other sources. In my opinion that sometimes can be dangerous or are least counterproductive for some colonies.

2nd: Blue led light is IMO very good. It makes colors pop up and stimulates cromoproteins to create new colors. In that is great.
But when you want a whiter tank, using lots of white light makes it more agressive source of light. Not sure why, colonies don't react so well to excess of white led light while there is no problem with white T5. Guess is the focalized energy of the led. More powerfull, but as it doesn't spread well, can stress out some colonies.

3rd: Not sure if at long term leds lose performance. haven't read nothing, but almost sure they do.
Changing your t5 yearly makes you have new lights. Easy to fix if they are broken. Quite reliable and cheap.

So, therefore, going back to T5 for me it's just natural. I'm afraid of changes, because, I've got great results with radion (proof that there is more than one way of getting things working perfectly)

The main issue was with kessil.
Don't like them as main. But seen wondeful things about them as support.

I think I'm going to make the leap of faith.

PS: More afraid of extra heating....that is truly going to be a pain in the butt.

Thank you all, let's go on with the conversation :)
 

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T5 to do the heavy lifting and LED for supplementation and shimmer is going to make you very happy.

Most have it backwards with the LEDs as the dominant light source and T5 as supplements. The only reason this became popular is that so many people piled their $ into those LED boxes only to find out they needed T5.

I'm mainly speaking for acropora dominant systems........notice I didn't say sps.
I had ati t5’s oN my 90 mixed reef tank with acros and had good luck with them but i changed Them out to 2 165 watt viper spectras and I noticed my acros and sps had better growth and color in then my t’5s . I was actually surprised with viper spectras with there performance.
Photo attached of 1 year old tank where I vipers running for 6 months of growing out from all frags .

0AEA5793-40A3-4EFF-BCE3-F036E09FE636.png
 
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Well, yesterday I had an idea which I think is even better for my budget.

Instead of the kessils, I'm going to put in 20º angle on each narrow side of the tank pointing to the centre of the tank a radiong3 XR30pro so to bring more light to the fixture.
Got 2, and if I wanted to sell them I will have to almost sell them for nothing, and I think they are still a wonderful lighting option, so why not, at least try?


I think it's going to be a great. More coverage, and more quality lights with the t5 and lots of light from the sides to the centre with the radions.

In the other side....maybe I'm nuts for using so much light....
 

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Well, yesterday I had an idea which I think is even better for my budget.

Instead of the kessils, I'm going to put in 20º angle on each narrow side of the tank pointing to the centre of the tank a radiong3 XR30pro so to bring more light to the fixture.
Got 2, and if I wanted to sell them I will have to almost sell them for nothing, and I think they are still a wonderful lighting option, so why not, at least try?


I think it's going to be a great. More coverage, and more quality lights with the t5 and lots of light from the sides to the centre with the radions.

In the other side....maybe I'm nuts for using so much light....
Definitely want to have a par meter on hand as that is a lot of light.
 

Daniel@R2R

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Been reefing for more than 10 years, always with T5.
But because my tank was a cube, I switched to led, and I don't regret this years.
But have never forgot what T5 are and do. And I don't think led are a bad source of light either. Just than T5 for my setup is for sure better. But got no science to prove it.



Using a 48" T5 fixture would double or more the budget (the 36" is way cheaper due to excepcional causes)
And there would be little space for any additional bar, or similar.
therefor the idea of using the extra space on each side to use kessil. .

The use would be 8hours T5full. 2 hours dimming t5 (1rise and 1 sunrise) and 12 hours kessil with white peak
But maybe is not as good idea as I think.


The kessil thing.

I like kessil on the paper. Blue specter seems to be perfect for the fluorences and bringing up more colors, but seen many people use SB or reefbrite.

For me would difficult to find them, but could find them hopefully.

Is there so much difference?

Thank you all for your replies. You are really helpful
20191119_174057.jpg


sorry for the quality, quick pic just as is getting dark...(or blue)
Beautiful tank!
 

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