Changing the lighting on Red Sea Reefer 450, need advice

Nburg's Reef · Jan 25, 2019

My ATI hybrid controller is having issues and I am thinking of replacing it with Radion and retro T5s while I try and fix it, then selling the hybrid. Its toooooo much light for my tank. The 4 t5s alone give me lots of PAR and adding LEDs makes it blisteringly bright. I am shooting for the WWC/BRS recommended parameters of hanging the lights high to try to get 250-350 par in all areas of the tank. They hybrid is a sweet tank but I think they belong on big tanks. Mine is having issues for unknown reasons but I bought used for cheap, so not blaming ATI. I have a mixed reef now, but will probably switch over to SPS at some point.

Anyways, I was thinking about either 2 radion pros and 2 60" T5s in a hanging canopy and then hanging it like 18" up to have everything blend nicely. Should I go 2 XR30 pros or 4 XR15s? 30s can go parallel now, but I can swap to perpendicular if I need to add a 3rd. OR go with the XR15s and add as I go? I am leaning XR30s, but I've never used radions so could use some advice.

nikunjpatel · Jan 25, 2019

I really liked having that ATI hybrid, best of both worlds and already a significant investment. Is it not repairable ? you could always just take out some of the bulbs ?

Nburg's Reef · Jan 25, 2019

nikunjpatel said:
I really liked having that ATI hybrid, best of both worlds and already a significant investment. Is it not repairable ? you could always just take out some of the bulbs ?

I don't know what's wrong with it, and we are trying to figure it out. I don't think it works with less bulbs, you need both fronts to make the front work and both backs to make the backs work, and I am not goint to stagger just fronts or just backs. plus the LEDs are more secondary to the T5s in my opinion and I would like to reverse that. To get the color I like, I end up with PAR in the 600-800 range.

So I am not looking to keep, so looking for the best option with a Radion Retro.