How did you justify buying a Radion Light?

[TheKingInYellow]

Was getting a new, larger tank. Uncle Sam knocked on door and took all my new tank money:mad::mad::mad::mad:

Man your Uncle sounds like a jerk.

 

[RazorRamon]

I will say this, a Radion with a diffuser is an excellent light for growing anything. I've had mine for a year and I love it. I do get bored fast with things so I will be considering the illumagic blaze series of lights maybe down the road. I hear those things just blanket like a t5 and the spectrum is limited to simply what grows coral.

 

[Rscott]

I didn’t justify it at all
I bought kessil the only choice!
Just like in the brs video the a360x best of 2019

 

[Denizzz]

I guess G4 are new base to begin with if a user wanna upgrade his/her to future G5. We wont be able to upgrade G3--->G4

 

[EmptyWallet]

Yeah if you do right by your corals, controllability isn't an issue with lights because you shouldn't be changing them all the time. I plugged my radions into my Laptop via USB, set it to AB+, pressed saved, haven't touched it since 2 years later... The need to turn on the whites for photographs has been negated by the cool phone lenses available

Don't get me wrong, the price tag for the radions is high but somewhat reasonable assuming quality (which appears to be the case now i'm 2 years in on my G4's).

I was annoyed by the price of the mount and diffuser which put another $210 AUD onto the price, about 1/3rd of the cost of the light. x the number of lights you have it adds up

 

[ImNemo]

I started with three ecotech gen 4 xr30w's. One is at Ecotech right now and will cost $450 to be repaired. I have already sold the other two and switched over to 4 kessils.

Reason for me is that it cost half as much to replace one kessil than it does to replace one radion. Plus I can get by with three kessils where I cannot get by with two radions if i have to send one off to be repaired.

I also run 4 t5's just because I think they provide growth that led's just can't.

 

[OREGONIC]

How about Red Sea ReefLED’s? They seem to be simple like the Kessil’s. Curious if anyone had had any experience with them? Almost same wattage as XR15, about 70 bucks cheaper and have wifi built in I believe.

 

[Bpb]

I will say this, a Radion with a diffuser is an excellent light for growing anything. I've had mine for a year and I love it. I do get bored fast with things so I will be considering the illumagic blaze series of lights maybe down the road. I hear those things just blanket like a t5 and the spectrum is limited to simply what grows coral.

Looks like a pretty typical spectral profile. Same basic colors as any high end led or even most black boxes. Nothing unique.

 

[MnFish1]

Hey I just wanted to reach out to the community to see why you purchased a Radion light fixture. Do you feel they are worth the extra cost when compared to Kessil, Aqua Illumination, or T5/led hybrids
Comparing most light setups Radion cost 50-80% more than others and doesn't even come with an phone app without buying another piece of equipment (Reeflink).

Just wanted to get peoples thoughts on this, thanks guys.

I liked the look on the tank.
The price was not that much higher (or lower)
The quality seemed above average
I liked the app/web interface.
Have been happy with mine
(Much happier than with one of the brands you list above)

 

[Ron83]

I have three Gen4 Radions. The difference is absolutely amazing. I ran T5's and LED strip on my 120 gallon and a razor then a LED light strip on my 20 gallon. The difference is so stunning my wife is constantly commenting on the beautiful coral and the color improvement too.

 

[hyprc]

My first excuse was "I want that awesome blue POP!" Now, it's "look how nice they're all coloring up and growing!" They're still overpriced... *shrug*

 

[Jacked Reefer]

I could never justify getting radions at full price. My current light cost me 50$ and will arguably get better growth AND coloration on all my corals (the only thing it doesn't have is acclimation mode, so corals do bleach, but they always bounce back after a month or two.) I just love thinking I could buy 17 of the fixture that I got (used price, and almost 6 at new) before i hit the cost of a single radion pro, and that's without defuser or mounting kit, Which i would consider a must.

 

[1stNoel]

As someone that owns both Kessils and Radions, I prefer the Radions. I purchased AP700s while the G3s were still out, but when the G4s came out...the corals just popped more under them (red and purple colors).

Also, I was an early adopter of Kessil and received a lot of bad initial advice. Their customer support, though responsive, didn't seem to be coral growers and every advice at settings ended up cooking my corals (they always pushed to running them at 100%...in the end, 35%-50% was actually the sweet spot...RIP early corals). All my local LFSs run Radions, so it was a lot easier to see them in action and mimic their success.

Another thing is that Ecotech was established, in that it has all types of supporting hardware (such as lighting mounts). Kessils did not release the AP700 with any light mounts, so finding a way to mount them nicely was a pain.

Price justification: I wanted the best...but bought used off the forums to save money. If patient and quick, you can find them around $600 each for an XR30 G4 Pro.

All this being said, I still LOVE the Kessil shimmer and incorporated it with Radions on my display tank (so I get the best of both worlds...Kessil shimmer with Radion coral pop). However, I'm incorporating frag tanks that will be Radion only. And if I were to start from scratch and could only purchase one, it would be the Radion.

But this is just my humble opinion.

 

[Titlowda1]

Had AI Primes. Moved to 360WE’s and then to XR15’s and never looked back. Took over a year but the tank is happy and so am I.

 

[MnFish1]

Not using reeflink. I don't mind plugging it in and setting it up. Probably saves me from over tweaking. And nope, not cheap. You asked how I justified not how I afforded . To be honest, I didn't have a second choice after seeing it with the diffuser. Might have even gone T5 small LED combo. Did I say how much I love shimmer and hate disco ball effect? A fine line with me granted but my eyes are very sensitive to it.

I had nothing but problems using the Apex with My lights - both AI and Radion. No problem with the reef link here.

 

[PhilT]

I bought my gen 3 pro xr30s used. Marked down quite a lot when people upgraded to gen 4. Of course they are several years old but haven’t had problems.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Yeah I would agree that those two are pretty equal when comparing those two and there wattage output. I still just think it is wild that EcoTech pretty much forces you into buying extras like a $100 reeflink to even properly use a $420, $600 or $800+ light you just bought

Be patient, Mobius will be out soon and will be able to control all ecotech and ai devices. And it wont cost a dime.

 

[MnFish1]

Be patient, Mobius will be out soon and will be able to control all ecotech and ai devices. And it wont cost a dime.

echo tech already has a great app/controller - who needs another one

 

[fcmatt]

I am a T5 person. In the past MH.

Are you folks telling me you have to buy a led lamp, some reeflink thing, a bracket system, and finally a diffuser to get the system to work as expected? Seriously? And to top it off to get proper coverage you are buying multiples? And you get the infamous customer support they offer and failure rate (I experienced it with MP40/MP10s) that makes Tunze look god like?

If so that is quite the racket they have going on.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Edit: I just read an article it appears they didn't do a buyout but a merger. So not sure how that works entirely and if each company still keeps holding onto its own intellectual property/patents.

The story for the tourist goes: ecotech and ai kept "one upping" each other to the point that they started to suffer, so they decided to join forces.

I for one don't believe that for a second... hehe

echo tech already has a great app/controller - who needs another one

The Mobius promises to be far superior to the reeflink, and the possibilities seem to be far greater reaching than just ETM and AI, the platform seems like it will wirelessly control a lot of other BLE and wifi devices on the market. If ETM plays their cards right we will see a shift in compatibility with the Mobius.

If you like the $99 reef link wait till you get a load of the mobius...