In need of new lighting

[mckinleyb]

Hey guys! Still fairly new to the hobby been a little over a year now. I have a tank that is 48x24x30 and I want to make it a mixed reef. Does anyone have suggestions as far as lighting goes? I need to upgrade my current setup as it just doesn't seem to be doing it.

 

[DrkNMighty]

What lights do you currently have? What is your budget for the upgrade? You are going to get a lot of opinions on this.

 

[mckinleyb]

Currently I have 2 popbloom rl90s and a fairly old ai sol blue that I grabbed from marketplace. I'm looking to stay under 1k for the upgrade

 

[DrkNMighty]

I have the Orphek Atlantik iCon over my newest tank. It’s at the top of your price range, but it offers good coverage and PAR over your size tank without having to buy multiple lights.

 

[Cthulukelele]

Honestly with a 30" deep tank 2-3 viparspectra 165w lights would work quite well. 3 if you want slightly more even light spread, but 2 would probably get the job mostly done

 

[Uncle99]

Agree with above ^^^^
My 3 Viparspectra 165-watts grow everything now running as new 5 years later.
Great bang for the buck.

 

[Lavey29]

Lights are one of those components that are critical to tank success with corals and its painful but buy once cry once. I would suggest spending a little more and going with 3 XR15 lights. I use 2 over my 36 inch SPS dominant mixed reef tank.

 

[Naekuh]

30 inch deep how high are the lights going to hang?

Like 1 foot above the water? 2 foot?

Since your used to popbloom, have you seen the Ecotech Radeon XR30 knockoff's?
They are called the A8 over on aliexpress.

People are saying they are almost on par with the real thing, only the software is a bit inconvient vs mobius.

Just make sure they are the original A8, or i hear the A8 Pro on the newer ones.

for a 48 inch tank you will probably need 2 spread out 2 feet from each other.

 

[exnisstech]

For budget lights I like noopsyche K7s it's what I have running on the tank in my showcase. 2 or 3 should work. For a higher end single light a reefbreeder photon 48 would be a nice fit. Both come with tank mounts so that saves a few bucks. I have both running with no complaints.
I personally won't recommend radions until ecotech steps up and fixes Mobius so it doesn't change date and time randomly so you never know if the lights are going to run when they should. I use Mobius for power heads but I don't care if they change in the middle of the nights. Lights I want to run when they are set to run. This has been an ongoing issue with Mobius. Just last week it changed to 2010 and this happens often.