Greg Carroll vs Amado Gonzalez- Radion G5 vs Kessil (1 Viewer)

[Cody]

The Vipraspectra is the best one. I still think you should come over to the dark side.

I’m only running two XR15 Pro’s for the first year on my 48x24.

I literally blasted my last tank with the ATI LED PowerModule- 8 bulbs on 48x18 with light spill all in the room. I can say I wasn’t impressed with how the corals grew. The corals were compacted and the corallites looked like crap to me. Yes they grew good, but I’m going a different route this time. I wanna run lower light for the first year to see what I can observe. WWC runs low light and I like how their corals look. I like vertical growth and not short compacted bush like growth. Plus I’m running slightly lower nutrients and last year I stripped their resources trying to push em with too much light. This time I’m growing for me and not to prove anything.

Same here, which is why I'm reducing T5s, and possibly eliminating them altogether. This is an ornamental hobby and I don't like the way my tank looks when my T5s are on, plus forget watching a movie on the couch.

I do find it enjoyable seeing ecotech change their tune and spreading their pucks out to mimic black boxes more though. And like I recently posted in another thread, BRS investigating spread of the lights they sell is not accurate. Yes, those lights give a great spread...on a flat surface, which our tanks aren't.

And knowing that the better the spread the more potential growth area you're activating, I would take an army of black boxes over a few radions any day. That's why Sanjay was maxing out both channels of his Radions to keep up with a halide. The halides were able to activate more surface area of the coral for potential growth area than a Radions. So, he had to maximize the limited growth potential areas that radions were offering.


This image will illustrate what I mean about spread on a non-flat surface.

 

[Reefahholic]

And that's where my issue lies. I know what you're saying and my history of reefing has always led me to seek a more robust spectrum. However, I'm not so sure these days that it's as important as I have thought it to be in the past. I and Gregg have talked to Jason Fox multiple times where he bluntly says to double down on your blue spectrum and that's the most important. Couple that with the fact that Chlorophyll A and B both have huge peaks in the blue and red spectrum, but the blue spectrum is used more efficiently, and it makes me wonder just how important yellow or green is to corals. They thrive on photosynthesis, after all. Blue, where these corals have spent hundreds of thousands of years developing, it's pretty much just blue light that they get.

I’ve watched Jason’s videos until my head has popped off. Here’s what I think about Jason’s tanks. It really goes along with what I just said above. One thing you’ll noticed that he says in his video is that “These corals don’t need as much light as we thing they do.” He runs all blue actinic bulbs with low par. His tanks are deep!

People mocked Dana Riddle because he said the same thing and I think the dude is on to something. Yes the corals will grow faster with more light and develop more intense colors. Faster is in shorter and wider IMO. The question becomes...what do you want your corals to look like.? Do you want short thick corals that have more weight or do you want healthy looking corals with more natural colors that have better vertical growth and beautiful long branches?

I can post pics but I want because I’ve looked and looked and read and looked and BLASTED my corals with heavy nutrients and ULN’s. I know and saw how they responded. The corals will grow either way. I tend to like how WWC’s corals look. The look healthy and they’re not short stubby bushes.

I’ll post one video to make my point. I can’t resist. What may appear amazing at first glance is exactly what I’m NOT looking for:





What I am looking for. You may think this guy is running higher light, but he’s not:

 

[Reefahholic]

Same here, which is why I'm reducing T5s, and possibly eliminating them altogether. This is an ornamental hobby and I don't like the way my tank looks when my T5s are on, plus forget watching a movie on the couch.

I do find it enjoyable seeing ecotech change their tune and spreading their pucks out to mimic black boxes more though. And like I recently posted in another thread, BRS investigating spread of the lights they sell is not accurate. Yes, those lights give a great spread...on a flat surface, which our tanks aren't.

And knowing that the better the spread the more potential growth area you're activating, I would take an army of black boxes over a few radions any day. That's why Sanjay was maxing out both channels of his Radions to keep up with a halide. The halides were able to activate more surface area of the coral for potential growth area than a Radions. So, he had to maximize the limited growth potential areas that radions were offering.


This image will illustrate what I mean about spread on a non-flat surface.

Sanjay maxes his Radions out to keep up with his 50ppm NO3 and his 0.4 PO4.

Bro...I spent 1K and I’m done with lighting. My Powermodule cost 60% more.

I’m gonna drop some G5’s by your house.

 

[Cody]

I’ve watched Jason’s videos until my head has popped off. Here’s what I think about Jason’s tanks. It really goes along with what I just said above. One thing you’ll noticed that he says in his video is that “These corals don’t need as much light as we thing they do.” He runs all blue actinic bulbs with low par. His tanks are deep!

People mocked Dana Riddle because he said the same thing and I think the dude is on to something. Yes the corals will grow faster with more light and develop more intense colors. Faster is in shorter and wider IMO. The question becomes...what do you want your corals to look like.? Do you want short thick corals that have more weight or do you want healthy looking corals with more natural colors that have better vertical growth and beautiful long branches?

I can post pics but I want because I’ve looked and looked and read and looked and BLASTED my corals with heavy nutrients and ULN’s. I know and saw how they responded. The corals will grow either way. I tend to like how WWC’s corals look. The look healthy and they’re not short stubby bushes.

I’ll post one video to make my point. I can’t resist. What may appear amazing at first glance is exactly what I’m NOT looking for:





What I am looking for. You may think this guy is running higher light, but he’s not:

No, I get it. I like the longer, less clustered look as well. And yes, I think there's more credit to be given to not as intense lights that are heavier in the blue spectrum than has been the trend in the past five years. I have talked to Jason in person a handful of times (perks of being on the BOD that works with national vendors for reef currents) and he always says to just push as much blue as possible. I'm sure you have seen his frags in person as well, directly from his shop, and they're no BS. The colors are really that nice.

My current floating canopy houses three viprascetrums oriented left to right, with two 80w T5s in front, and two in back. The new canopy that I built will house five viprasectras oriented front to back (with just a 3" gap between each unit) with the option of a single 80w T5 in the front and one in the back, if I choose to utilize them.

 

[Cody]

Sanjay maxes his Radions out to keep up with his 50ppm NO3 and his 0.4 PO4.

Bro...I spent 1K and I’m done with lighting. My Powermodule cost 60% more.

I’m gonna drop some G5’s by your house.

I just spent $630 on five brand new units of viprasectras to go over my display. I currently run 13 of these units, and some of them are getting old. I figured the newer three units that I have over my display tank will be put into use sooner or later.

 

[Reefahholic]

I talked to Viking and I know a lot of those corals in his tank and exactly how they looked in my tank with different PAR and Spectrums. He’s definitely not blasting those corals with 500 or 600 PAR.

Look at Rico’s old tank that everybody thought was amazing. The dude 300DD with a few older LED fixtures (Ocean Revives) and 4 T5 bulbs. He probably had 300 PAR max at top of rocks.

 

[Reefahholic]

Is WWC blasting their corals? NOPE!

 

[Reefahholic]

No, I get it. I like the longer, less clustered look as well. And yes, I think there's more credit to be given to not as intense lights that are heavier in the blue spectrum than has been the trend in the past five years. I have talked to Jason in person a handful of times (perks of being on the BOD that works with national vendors for reef currents) and he always says to just push as much blue as possible. I'm sure you have seen his frags in person as well, directly from his shop, and they're no BS. The colors are really that nice.

My current floating canopy houses three viprascetrums oriented left to right, with two 80w T5s in front, and two in back. The new canopy that I built will house five viprasectras oriented front to back (with just a 3" gap between each unit) with the option of a single 80w T5 in the front and one in the back, if I choose to utilize them.

I’m probably gonna retrofit some T5’s before I add another 3rd radion.

Look at the freaking spread with two alone. Are you kidding me!! They’re literally outperforming T5’s.

 

[Reefahholic]

Coral Euphoria says light is everything. I respectfully disagree. I don’t feel corals need a crap load of light.

Look at Rico’s old tank. 27” high. LOW LIGHT.

 

[Reefahholic]

Last one rant done. Haha.

 

[Cody]

I’m probably gonna retrofit some T5’s before I add another 3rd radion.

Look at the freaking spread with two alone. Are you kidding me!! They’re literally outperforming T5’s.

Killing par on a flat surface. If your corals grow then they will skewer these parameters. If you have rocks, then even worse. The more you cluster leds, the worse. Assuming spectrum and intensity is correct, the more you can spam them the better, which is what radions and the others fail at.

 

[guylaga]

Pictures like these make me glad I didnt upgrade lighting on my reboot and just spent the money on better flow and livestock...

 

[Reefahholic]

I need to quit giving out all the secrets

 

[Reefahholic]

Jason Fox multiple times where he bluntly says to double down on your blue spectrum and that's the most important. Couple that with the fact that Chlorophyll A and B both have huge peaks in the blue and red spectrum, but the blue spectrum is used more efficiently, and it makes me wonder just how important yellow or green is to corals.

I’d tend to want to believe Jason Fox if I didn’t know better. Here’s why... one of the best bulbs for growing coral EVER was the Iwasaki 6500K. Very yellow/white bulb. No blue at all. Ask Adam at battle corals.
View attachment 37892

So if we know that bulb grows corals probably faster than anything else (Sanjay will agree) and Jason grows some nice colonies with lower blue light (mostly actinic lamps) then meeting in the middle seems the most logical to me. A full spectrum lower PAR fixture/s is what I’m looking for. Something I can dial down. The corals may not grow and yield the most weight, but they will grow longer and branch better IMO.

No bushes or shrubs for me. I’ve always liked the look for those deep water stag fields! You have to hit the perfect PAR which is hard to do. Enough to keep the coral healthy and prevent it from reaching too much, but not so much that it creates shrubs.

I mean some people like that intense light to get the protective color pigments, but then it goes back to what Dana Riddle said. If corals are putting out protective color pigmentation then do they really want/need that much light?? I argue they don’t. They can and will obviously adapt in most cases.

I ran so much light in my last tank that the rocks were literally cooking. The rocks were releasing bubbles during my peak photo period constantly. That’s just too much light and the majority of corals didn’t like being cooked that intensely unless I constantly pumped them full of nutrition. There were a few that seemed to like it, but the majority didn’t. Maybe if I had 50ppm NO3 and ran higher PO4 like Sanjay the outcome would have been better.

That’s the problem with reef tanks today, we’re trying to grow all types of corals in about 24” of vertical space, and most of the corals were collected much deeper. Not to mention we have far better filtration methods these days. The light penetration is too intense sometimes.

I’m just doing the lower light observation for the first year and if I like what I see I’ll keep it there and if not, I’ll crank it up a bit.

 

[Reefahholic]

I’ve watched Jason’s videos until my head has popped off. Here’s what I think about Jason’s tanks. It really goes along with what I just said above. One thing you’ll noticed that he says in his video is that “These corals don’t need as much light as we thing they do.” He runs all blue actinic bulbs with low par. His tanks are deep!

People mocked Dana Riddle because he said the same thing and I think the dude is on to something. Yes the corals will grow faster with more light and develop more intense colors. Faster is in shorter and wider IMO. The question becomes...what do you want your corals to look like.? Do you want short thick corals that have more weight or do you want healthy looking corals with more natural colors that have better vertical growth and beautiful long branches?

I can post pics but I want because I’ve looked and looked and read and looked and BLASTED my corals with heavy nutrients and ULN’s. I know and saw how they responded. The corals will grow either way. I tend to like how WWC’s corals look. The look healthy and they’re not short stubby bushes.

I’ll post one video to make my point. I can’t resist. What may appear amazing at first glance is exactly what I’m NOT looking for:





What I am looking for. You may think this guy is running higher light, but he’s not:

These two YouTube thumbnails above say it all. Shrubs hit with too much light vs long beautiful colonies in lower light!

 

[Reefahholic]

Killing par on a flat surface. If your corals grow then they will skewer these parameters. If you have rocks, then even worse. The more you cluster leds, the worse. Assuming spectrum and intensity is correct, the more you can spam them the better, which is what radions and the others fail at.

After seeing this data...I’ve never considered running cheap lighting again:


Although the XR15’s are far cheaper than my last fixture.

 

[Cody]

After seeing this data...I’ve never considered running cheap lighting again:


Although the XR15’s are far cheaper than my last fixture.

Yeah that video confirms everything that I’m already saying. Of course, the radions are better units when put side by side. For an accurate comparison they need to spam 7-8 of those grouped very closely together and then measure versus a single radion. I just don’t see the value in radions.

 

[NateY46]

Wait... wait... wait.... no, listen... listen... listen....

Lol, Greg put on a lighting clinic.
This is why Jason is big on blue, he sees it when he dives. In case some people haven't seen this before. When we went down to 30m in Hawaii, it was unbelievably blue.

 

[Reefahholic]

The corals will adapt to blue, white, or full spectrum. They will adapt to intense light and lower light. It really comes down to your preference. Do you want shrubs or big colonies?

 

[reeftopia]

Love my vipraspectra and I love the fact that I still got money in my
pocketbook