Thinking of Switching to Radion G5's

[denverjon]

So I'm thinking of finally making the switch from MH's to LED's for a couple reasons...

-I don't have as many sps as in the past and have turned my tank into more of a mixed reef with sps, lps and softies
-I like the look of led's better than halides
-My temps get really warm in the summer with halides, sometimes approaching 83 degrees

I currently have led/t5 reefbrite strips on the front and back of my tank with (2) 250w 20k Radium halides in the middle. My thought would be to keep the strips and simply replace the halides with a pair of Radion G5's.

I've drawn a diagram to show what I'm thinking. The led's would basically sit above each island. Does anyone have any thoughts either way about my plans? My tank is 60" long (4" on the right is covered by an overhang due to it being a built-in). It's 30" deep and around 26" tall.

 

[Hydrored]

Looks like an ok plan, I just fear you are not going to get the coverage you expect on a 60” tank. I was running 4 XR15’s on a 48” with reef brites and the coverage was great. I would pick 4 XR15’s over 2 30’s. If you are stuck on the 30’s I would pickup ReeFi’s instead using the 100.00 off code, my opinion they are a superior fixture. Great looking tank BTW

 

[Crabby48]

I agree 60” is a lot of area to cover with only to xr30.

 

[HuduVudu]

I would wait until Mobius stabilizes. I have xR30 G5 and I am happy with the light, but Mobius needs some more ironing.

 

[denverjon]

I could go with 4 xr15's as the total price is similar. If you look at my diagram, the distance between the two reef brites where the halides are currently is only around 9". I have about 26" from each side of my tank to the center brace so I would need to place the xr15's side by side. Would that work ok and still give me more coverage than the 30's?

 

[RayDRoot]

Does Reefi light's have better par spread (coverage) than xr30 gen 5? Has there been any PAR comparisons?

 

[jda]

You might be happy with them, but it is going to be different. The 2x xr30s will be less light and coverage than your current halides - you will probably need 4x for a more true replacement running then depth-wise. Again, you might be happy with less light and coverage, but it will not be the same. If you are not willing to sacrifice what you have, then plan on buying 4 of them.

Personally, I would like to see some results over a year or two with ReeFi before I would buy-in too hard. There are long-term success tanks with the Radions, but I have yet to see one with ta ReeFi. This seems more like a confirmation bias suggestion rather than a time-proven-results kind of thing.

Also, do not sleep on Photon v2. Check out therman's tank and threads under Photon V2. He does run more of them than most people and he also runs then at 100% on all channels, but his results with LEDs and acropora are as good as anybody that I have seen.

 

[Superlightman]

You think 2 Xr15 would be enough for 150*60*60cm ?from the par mesurement i saw it should be enough

 

[Jon's Reef]

BRS did a video comparing XR15 and XR30. Results on a 4' x 2' tank, so you have to "estimate" a bit.

 

[Hydrored]

@danlu_gt for ReeFi

 

[dadnjesse]

If you do 4 XR15's you will have 4 cords and 4 power supply's compared to 2 XR30's with 2 cords and 2 power supply's.

 

[Hydrored]

You can thank Dana as I may be going to those lights. On a 72 x 30 in tank, would you recommend 3 or 4 or even more lights for total coverage to prevent shadowing?

I run 5 perpendicular on an 8 foot tank, coverage has been great.

 

[Ike]

Personally, I would do an XR30 in the middle and an XR15 on each side and supplement with T5's