Radions or Hydras?!

[Amy Yates]

Next week I am going to upgrade my lights on both my 100 litre nano set up which should I go for? I'm currently running an ocean revive artic t247s on both but these are going to go on my new tank of 300 litres .

I want a lightening/storm feature as I believe this helps provide a natural environment for them if I'm not mistaken?

What do you guys think?

 

[Paullawr]

Next week I am going to upgrade my lights on both my 100 litre nano set up which should I go for? I'm currently running an ocean revive artic t247s on both but these are going to go on my new tank of 300 litres .

I want a lightening/storm feature as I believe this helps provide a natural environment for them if I'm not mistaken?

What do you guys think?

Radion are good.

I had those.

Now have kelo ao100 and it's superb.

 

[Reefer74]

I prefer Radions. They are even better with the new diffusers.

 

[ps2cho]

Radion are good.

I had those.

Now have kelo ao100 and it's superb.

They couldn't even try to not do a straight ripoff...

 

[CJS80]

When I went with LED's I wanted a small form factor, good known light output, and controllability. I narrowed it down to 3 choices Kessel 360, Raidon xr15, and Hydra 26. The Kessel was the first to be eliminated of the three because 2 main reasons for me. First was lack of out of box control like the other 2, the second was the other 2 are made in US and I like to support the business where I live. Out of the two left I decided by price vs options out of box. The winner for me was the Hydras mostly because they are $50 cheaper, and they have built in WiFi. The WiFi on the lights isn't very strong so I used an old router as a WAP in the same room and haven't had a problem, so also saved $100 not having to buy a reef link for Radion. In the end both are good lights, so choose the one you like.

 

[rkpetersen]

I've had 3 Hydra 26HDs over a Reefer 450 for about a year. They have decent spectrum, and can easily sustain acros and montis (although growth has increased since I added T5s.) The 3 synced with each other easily, and they are fairly easy to program either via phone app or website. There is a lightning feature, but no cloud simulation with the current software. You asked if the lightning is more 'natural'. IMO, it's a gimmick, completely unnecessary. I left it on for a few months. First couple of times it happened when I had my arm in the tank aquascaping, it was quite unnerving. Got tired of it eventually and disabled it. The Hydras also have lunar cycle and acclimation modes. As mentioned above, the Hydra wifi reception capability is not exceptional, and I did have to add a wifi extender to keep them solidly connected to the network. They also can't be controlled or programmed through my Apex.

 

[rkpetersen]

I am in the process of setting up another Reefer 450, at present. I decided to go with 3 of the new Radion XR15 G4 Pros. Can't comment on coral growth yet, but the lights look nice, especially with the diffusers the lighting looks very even. I already had a Reef Link I had used (briefly) with the Vortechs on the other tank. It was always a pain to program and that was when it was communicating well with the pumps which wasn't often. Nonetheless I tried it first on the new Radions. Well, it was just ridiculous. Connection was unstable, programming didn't work properly in my browser (Firefox/PC). Gave up after about 90 minutes. Unfortunate, as the EcoSmart Live features look pretty extensive. Thought about trying the Connection Manager, but the lights were already up and I didn't have long powered USB cable. So I proceeded to try connecting them directly to the WXM/Apex. All 3 Radions reset and attached to the Apex instantly; I downloaded an AB+ scheme someone else had uploaded, and I was up and running in less than 5 minutes! With Apex control, you can do most of the things you can do with EcoSmart Live, although the interface is less intuitive. I haven't tried the lightning or clouds yet.

 

[Paullawr]

They couldn't even try to not do a straight ripoff...

Well things Is they ain't a straight rip off.
Thats what pis$es me off. So many people slam then but truth be told they are no more similar ro a kessil as TMC are to a radion.

So to put it out there.
Kessil blue, white and UV.
Kelo blue, white, red, green, UV.

Kessil 90w
Kelo 100w

Kessil in house dense matrix.
Kelo cree etc. Sense matrix.

Kessil short can one dial box.
Kelo long can 2 dial.

So sure are. The similarities.

Please I'd like to know.

 

[John3]

I think you are fine with either radion or hydra. I have a radion and like it. The lightening features I do not believe are doing anything beneficial but could look cool for st least the first couple times.

 

[Amy Yates]

I do have a kessil a350w is it? What features are on the spectral controller?

 

[John3]

Spectral controller works, but Its nowhere near what you can program with a radion. I imagine the hydras have better software as well.

 

[mtraylor]

Next week I am going to upgrade my lights on both my 100 litre nano set up which should I go for? I'm currently running an ocean revive artic t247s on both but these are going to go on my new tank of 300 litres .

I want a lightening/storm feature as I believe this helps provide a natural environment for them if I'm not mistaken?

What do you guys think?

When buying lighting. It is very important to know what types of corals you are going to have and you want your lighting to meet those needs. That is how I would be making my decision.
As far as lightening/storm. That is a waste of time and only a good way to try and scare the $*ll out of your fish and inhabitants IMO. Don't waste your time. I think you would only see lightning
in a really shallow reef. I'm an avid scuba diver, and believe me when your under the water at reasonable depth, your not seeing a bunch lightning flashes if a storm comes. Not that your looking
up much anyway LOL. Storms do however change the water currents much. You could be on a nice dive and not even know a storm was going on till you reached close the surface and realize there
are 20ft swells in the ocean. Been there and done that.

The cloud features are pretty awesome though and realistic for a nice shallow reef and wont freak out your fish. Nice feature as it can change spectrum randomly over the corals throughout the day.
Good luck in your decision.

 

[EmdeReef]

Following. Don't want to hijack the thread but how loud are the Radions G4 pro? I've read some complaints about the fan noise.

 

[John3]

The G4 running AB+ at 70% doesn’t cause the fan to run much if at all. Same schedule at 100% and the fan runs a good amount. Overall sound isn’t bad but I have 3 kids so it’s never quite here.

 

[Pete1968]

I had kessils before on my 200 mixed reef they had great shimmer but terrible par rating, when i sold that tank and build my new deep blue pro 80, i went with radions xr15 pro, what a difference! They are amazing and my mixed reef corals love them

 

[Philip Chin]

I had the same issues and decided on the radions. The ocean revive are still on the tank and waiting for the radions to come in.

 

[FunkEngine]

Well things Is they ain't a straight rip off.
Thats what pis$es me off. So many people slam then but truth be told they are no more similar ro a kessil as TMC are to a radion.

So to put it out there.
Kessil blue, white and UV.
Kelo blue, white, red, green, UV.

Kessil 90w
Kelo 100w

Kessil in house dense matrix.
Kelo cree etc. Sense matrix.

Kessil short can one dial box.
Kelo long can 2 dial.

So sure are. The similarities.

Please I'd like to know.

I mean its clearly a copy cat kessil. I understand that there are only so many ways to skin a cat when building a light, but the name is similar, the model name is similar, it uses an almost identical housing, etc.

And frankly I don't really care about that. What I want to know is why its literally within spitting distance in price with the Kessil equivalent. If it was like Jebao price, great, helps out the budget hobbyists, but this just doesn't seem to make any sense.

 

[Paullawr]

I mean its clearly a copy cat kessil. I understand that there are only so many ways to skin a cat when building a light, but the name is similar, the model name is similar, it uses an almost identical housing, etc.

And frankly I don't really care about that. What I want to know is why its literally within spitting distance in price with the Kessil equivalent. If it was like Jebao price, great, helps out the budget hobbyists, but this just doesn't seem to make any sense.

The price isn't though and as you say only so many ways to skin a cat.

I rate it higher than the kessil. Having owned an ap700 and done beta testing for their software which was out way before it was ready. All in all I couldn't care less if similarities exist.

Aqua one create a dense matrix that looks like kessil a 80 but it's never flagged. No different than pumps.

Still that aside it's 100w vs 90w. Full spectrum vs blend of blue, comes with gooseneck that's an optional extras and where i come from a good 30% cheaper.

 

[Centerline]

I own both Radion Gen4 Pros and Hydra 52 HDs. There really isn't much difference between them. Both are powerful enough to cook your tank or grow any coral. Both Hydras and Radions use a combination of passive and active cooling - heat sink with a fan. Fans on neither make any noise I can hear. You have as much control over the available spectrum as you want with either of the lights. Most likely you will be looking at a variant of a Coral Lab profile and you can dial that right in on both lights. Radions have two things going for them the Hydras don't. First you can control them with your Apex but its absolutely unnecessary to do so. The second is the new diffusers - probably see a lot more success stories from people that use them. I use them and really like them. Considering milling out a an aluminum face for my Hydras that will let me put a diffuser on them as well.

BTW, if you are not familiar with how seriously potent these lights are consider picking up a Par meter that responds well to LEDs.

So - its a toss up.

 

[250mixreef]

Both are great lights you can't go wrong with either one. If money is not an issue get the radions. I have a thriving mixed reef under hydra52 HD'S with great growth and colration