nice to hear from someone who has had the hydra 32 and radion 15! Which generation radions though? I guess the g5 are way better, i know defiently better spread! Do they use the same leds? I think Radions uses hci or something like that. The reason I put hydra back in the game is I saw some good prices if I were to win the bid that is! There is noway I would go with hydra paying regular retail! I like the smaller size and comparing 15's to 32 hydra is only 50 bucks cheaper but if you go with the bigger 64 than hydra is way cheaper! By 200 bucks! Dosnt make sense how they discount if you double the size for hydra but not for radion! My question i like to ask since you have had both is which gives more color pop? The 15 or the 32? Also Do you really have to mount the hydra at least 12 inches tall? Actually brs recomended 14 for the 32! Couldn't I just put the few sps in center where the par would be higher and mount about 8or9 inches?? Thanks for any info you can give
At the time of this thread “Jan 2019” I had used the 26HD and went to Gen4 XR15s. Seemingly most of the colors got better, but you would have to remember the corals will take time to adjust to the change in lighting so the immediate difference will likely not be the case over time. The Radion/ AI difference in suggested mounting height is based on the average PAR over the coverage area. The AI having less spread is the reason to lift the light higher to even the light coverage. As you say you can have the light lower and focus more high light demand corals near the center point, however you can get the shadows from this same approach which in turn may cause the addition of another fixture. In the case of shadowing you may need to figure 3 AI vs only 2 radion.
If shadowing is major factor, which is for me, I would suggest a T5 fixture with the supplemental LED bars for a hybrid system. -I had the 2 AI, then on to 2 XR15, then to a 3rd XR15, and finally now I’ve added 2 Reefbrite XHO kits to 2 of the XR15s....
That being said I had the coverage I needed everywhere, but some shadowing here and there I felt I had to fill in due to more of the shape of the tank (92 corner) than lights.
Personally if I were going with AI again I would likely use 2- 16HD over 1- 32HD to give me more mounting flexibility for light direction. However talking about puck style lights, I couldn’t help but think another puck style fixture I see a lot of reefers using, and I may would consider, is the Noophsyce (sp?) K7 line.
The panel style layout of LEDs looks to be the way things are growing. Even Ecotech took that approach with their new light! Even the cheaper options like ReefBreeders and MarsAqua (black boxes) have great success with this style whereas the knock-off Kessil clone and other puck style lights never get traction in the market due to low performance.
All in all any of the light will work, you just have to find what fits in you system the best. BRS has done the work for you in a lot of the lights. If you only have 10” light height to work with the Radion or ReefBreeders may work best, however if you’re hanging them from the ceiling with “unlimited” height and like AI better then they’d be the one for you. *Note: The higher the light for left to right coverage, the more front to back coverage; so you may encounter more light spill in the room than desired especially if you aren’t using some sort of canopy. Say the tank is in your living room, open top/ no canopy, and the lights are 12-14” high are they going to be shining in your eyes when seated?
You can see where this get so complex to which is “better” or “worth it?”. What I found when selecting lights to be the easiest method of choosing was looking over the build threads and finding the tanks I liked best and keeping tabs on which lights were used. There’s many things other than lighting that go into a successful reef. However if you look at 30 build threads and found 20 systems that you would like to mimic the coloration of, and 16 of those tanks had brand X lights... why choose another brand based off any other info?
