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Radion XR15 G6 Blue Question


SPSClown

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Just had a question on what schedule, colors, and power you use with your Radions. I want to keep a mixed reef with acros, lps, and some softies. What would you recommend?

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This is going to depend entirely on the size of your tank (mainly how deep it is), how long your photoperiod is, how high above the water you hand your lights, and what you keep your nutrient levels at. I can give you a range of settings if you tell me how big your tank is and how long you want your photoperiod to be. You'll need to dial them in though to match how you keep your nutrients.

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5 hours ago, jservedio said:

This is going to depend entirely on the size of your tank (mainly how deep it is), how long your photoperiod is, how high above the water you hand your lights, and what you keep your nutrient levels at. I can give you a range of settings if you tell me how big your tank is and how long you want your photoperiod to be. You'll need to dial them in though to match how you keep your nutrients.

was going to mount it 8 inches above a 20 gallon jbj cube and for photoperiod im not too sure yet how long would you recommend?

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I've got an ancient G2 XR30Pro with 120 degree wide angle lenses, so it's actually remarkably close to your new XR15 in power and spread.

 

Here's the schedule I ran for 8 years on my 20g Tall and continue to run on my 50g (just bumped a bit in power). I can send the XML file if you need, but this was before they had good pre made programs.

 

radion-settings.thumb.jpg.36a267f4594ab4428dadc9e37c785a83.jpg

 

To even get to using 40% power took me more than a year and I ran very high nutrients. They are absurdly powerful lights and you need way less power than you'd expect for acros. It's nearly impossible to light starve them, but incredibly easy to light bleach them.

 

I wouldn't start above 35% power for more than 6 hours with another hour on either side for ramping up. Using AB+ makes it easy, just be careful about very slowly ramping up power. It's easy to increase power, but if you go to far it takes months to recover from. With slightly less power than my old xr30Pro, you'd still probably never get to 50% power.

 

You'll be super happy with the light and it'll last forever. Mines been running non-stop 14.5 hours a day for a decade.

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25 minutes ago, jservedio said:

I've got an ancient G2 XR30Pro with 120 degree wide angle lenses, so it's actually remarkably close to your new XR15 in power and spread.

 

Here's the schedule I ran for 8 years on my 20g Tall and continue to run on my 50g (just bumped a bit in power). I can send the XML file if you need, but this was before they had good pre made programs.

 

radion-settings.thumb.jpg.36a267f4594ab4428dadc9e37c785a83.jpg

 

To even get to using 40% power took me more than a year and I ran very high nutrients. They are absurdly powerful lights and you need way less power than you'd expect for acros. It's nearly impossible to light starve them, but incredibly easy to light bleach them.

 

I wouldn't start above 35% power for more than 6 hours with another hour on either side for ramping up. Using AB+ makes it easy, just be careful about very slowly ramping up power. It's easy to increase power, but if you go to far it takes months to recover from. With slightly less power than my old xr30Pro, you'd still probably never get to 50% power.

 

You'll be super happy with the light and it'll last forever. Mines been running non-stop 14.5 hours a day for a decade.

Thank you so much does the XML file still work on the new ones? I would love if you could send me it either way!

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12 hours ago, SPSClown said:

Thank you so much does the XML file still work on the new ones? I would love if you could send me it either way!

If I were setting up a new XR15 or XR30 today and using nothing but Radions over the tank, I'd just use the AB+ profile like everyone else does instead of my old schedule which is basically a replication of how I ran my T5s, just with a ramp up and early morning and night RB/UV. I continue to use the schedule I created instead of AB+ since I also use AI Primes to supplement my Radion now that I have a bigger tank and it makes it easy to match schedule across multiple lights. I would definitely suggest using AB+ instead of my schedule since you'll have to heavily edit my schedule anyway. If you are going to DIY it, only use mine as a guideline - it probably won't work if you just import the schedule.

 

If you use AB+ with a 4-6 hour main photoperiod, just set your max power to like 35% and then use the acclimatization timer set to 6 weeks with a starting power of like 25%. This is definitely the easiest way to go. From there, if you want more light, bump it up by increments of 5% and use the acclimatization timer to slowly increase it over a month.

 

My old file might import on EcoSmartLive, but you are going to have to modify it heavily to work with your light since the channels likely don't match up and you have a different number of diodes on each channel. Your light with the same settings would likely look a lot more blue than it does over my tank: https://pastebin.com/gqb7yfFV.

 

12 hours ago, SPSClown said:

Also do you need all of the white light too or can I just run mostly blue light I like the extra pop the blue lights add to the corals?

You can set your whites to whatever you want - the vast majority of your PAR is coming from the Royal Blue channel and shorter wavelengths. For my old XR30Pro, 18,000K is 100% on UV, RB, B but only 25% on W, G, R (it's probably different on yours). Their schedule editor makes it really easy for you to pick the color temperature you are going for and then it'll adjust the channels accordingly.

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6 minutes ago, jservedio said:

If I were setting up a new XR15 or XR30 today and using nothing but Radions over the tank, I'd just use the AB+ profile like everyone else does instead of my old schedule which is basically a replication of how I ran my T5s, just with a ramp up and early morning and night RB/UV. I continue to use the schedule I created instead of AB+ since I also use AI Primes to supplement my Radion now that I have a bigger tank and it makes it easy to match schedule across multiple lights. I would definitely suggest using AB+ instead of my schedule since you'll have to heavily edit my schedule anyway. If you are going to DIY it, only use mine as a guideline - it probably won't work if you just import the schedule.

 

If you use AB+ with a 4-6 hour main photoperiod, just set your max power to like 35% and then use the acclimatization timer set to 6 weeks with a starting power of like 25%. This is definitely the easiest way to go. From there, if you want more light, bump it up by increments of 5% and use the acclimatization timer to slowly increase it over a month.

 

My old file might import on EcoSmartLive, but you are going to have to modify it heavily to work with your light since the channels likely don't match up and you have a different number of diodes on each channel. Your light with the same settings would likely look a lot more blue than it does over my tank: https://pastebin.com/gqb7yfFV.

 

You can set your whites to whatever you want - the vast majority of your PAR is coming from the Royal Blue channel and shorter wavelengths. For my old XR30Pro, 18,000K is 100% on UV, RB, B but only 25% on W, G, R (it's probably different on yours). Their schedule editor makes it really easy for you to pick the color temperature you are going for and then it'll adjust the channels accordingly.

Thank you so much! Do i start it at 25% power max when acclimating the corals and then gradually bump it to 35%?

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33 minutes ago, SPSClown said:

Thank you so much! Do i start it at 25% power max when acclimating the corals and then gradually bump it to 35%?

You set your max power to 35% and then turn on the acclimatization feature. It'll ask how long you want it to acclimatize for and what you want your starting percentage to be. They have super good documentation for this. You do this to make sure that any corals you have aren't light shocked since it takes time for corals to adjust to new lights.

 

If you don't have corals in the tank yet, I'd just set it to 35% to figure out what color you like and then when you get your first coral, turn it on acclimatization mode. You just want to make sure you aren't overdoing it and ramp up slowly. It's basically impossible to light starve corals with a Radion over a nano, they are stupidly powerful - even if you started at like 10 or 15% it'd still be plenty of light to keep any acro alive even on the sandbed basically indefinitely. You may not get much growth and it brown after a few months, but you aren't going to be killing anything from lack of light with a Radion.

 

How much light your corals can handle is entirely dependent on the nutrient levels in your tank, so every tank is going to be different. That's why you go slow - if you see any sign of light bleaching, you can back right off. This is very important in a newer tank because your nutrient levels are kind of all over as the tank is maturing. If your acros are happy and growing with say 5ppm of nitrate and 0.05ppm of Phosphate with your lights at 50% and then you suddenly dropped down to barely detectible of both N and P from a GHA outbreak, that amount of light may be too much now.

 

32 minutes ago, SPSClown said:

And every time I add a coral do I have to use the acclimatizer setting for 6 weeks again? I will not be able to get every coral right away

No - once you've found a good level of light for your tank/nutrient levels you don't have to do that. Just start corals down low on the sandbed and then slowly move them up to where you want them permanently.

 

You can always rent a PAR meter if you want actual numbers.

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23 hours ago, SPSClown said:

was going to mount it 8 inches above a 20 gallon jbj cube

I'd guess you are still looking at 90º lenses, or close.  Ecotech doesn't seem to claim on the website that the diffuser does anything like change the lens angle, but then they don't claim much in the way of specifics on their website.)  

 

Assuming 90º for the moment, at 8" mounting height that would give you a 16" diameter of coverage under each LED....or roughly 8" of coverage outside the perimeter of the fixture.  Just about right for a cube your size!  👍

 

If you really think the fixture is at something more like 120º after you consider the diffusers and everything, then at 8" mounting height you are going to be creating a 28" diameter of coverage at the water line – quite a bit of overkill in terms of coverage. 

 

At 120º your mounting height could (should) be a lot lower...about half the distance or so.  About 4-5".  You still get the "perfect fit" on your coverage that way, with a coverage diameter between 14-18" (aka about 7-9" outside the perimeter of the fixture).

 

Just some math thoughts!  

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14 hours ago, mcarroll said:

I'd guess you are still looking at 90º lenses, or close.  Ecotech doesn't seem to claim on the website that the diffuser does anything like change the lens angle, but then they don't claim much in the way of specifics on their website.)  

 

Assuming 90º for the moment, at 8" mounting height that would give you a 16" diameter of coverage under each LED....or roughly 8" of coverage outside the perimeter of the fixture.  Just about right for a cube your size!  👍

 

If you really think the fixture is at something more like 120º after you consider the diffusers and everything, then at 8" mounting height you are going to be creating a 28" diameter of coverage at the water line – quite a bit of overkill in terms of coverage. 

 

At 120º your mounting height could (should) be a lot lower...about half the distance or so.  About 4-5".  You still get the "perfect fit" on your coverage that way, with a coverage diameter between 14-18" (aka about 7-9" outside the perimeter of the fixture).

 

Just some math thoughts!  

Thank you! I will consider the 120 degree lens too I just watched a video on a 20 gallon cube with the light and a 8 inch mounting height so I was thinking about doing that

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