Anyone running Radion Pros here?

[ajcanale]

I have 3 Radion G2 Pro's over a 5x2x2, about 18" above water line. They peak @ 62% in 14k. I have over 30 SPS varieties in my tank some high up and some as low as the sandbed. Color and growth are both excellent. I have been using Radions for about 3 years and have had more success running them at somewhat lower intensities.

My schedule is attached.

 

[doctorwhoreefer]

I agree, there's so much adjustment which is nice, but there's a lot of potential to choose the wrong settings. I just want something that works now.

Doctorwho, yeah I never really feed my corals, just figured there was plenty of food going in with the fish food. I have some reef chilli so will try that.

Ya, I've since moved to using an eheim, 4 feedings per day, 6 hours apart, just a few specks of nutricell(little bit of really small pellets to keep the powder moving) to keep the water plankton count up. Seems to have helped a lot.

How do you like the chili? I was thinking about that but the lfs only had this nutricell. Been kinda turned off by the higher price of the reef chili..

As a side note too, for the lights, I've actually turned my schedule around to go from all blues beginning and end of day. Then for midday, 6 hours, white climbs to a peak of 40%. Peak spectrum is 14k at 47 red, 27 green, 90 blues, 65 uv, 40 white.

So far I'm still acclimating the tank, but I've seen a deepening of colors and the amount of fluorescence over the past weeks from a lessening of the white amount/length.

Still too soon to tell for sure, but I'm starting to believe the white spectrum of led's should not be relied upon for a main light source, but turned down a bit to provide more of a "filling spectrum" to the other colors used.

Here's my schedule as well, I may trim it more towards 6700k midday, but I'm considering acclimation not only including the intensity changes, but spectral changes. End result will be more of a following of the natural sun through the sky as it changes spectrum through the day at a single point on the reef. (basically blues, increasing towards 6700k midday... all of it involves the refraction and saltwater effect on light, the spectrum changes.. you can really think of the Pythagoras's theorem, the sun being c^2, the minimalist differences existing when the sun is at it's peak)

Rename .txt to .etg

 

[IUfan]

Anyone running Radion Pros here?

Doctorwho: the reef chilli is good, only ever used that so don't have much to compare too, before I messed up my tank the SPS would react really well when feeding with it extending the feeding tentacles and polyps. But haven't been using it as been battling a bunch of problems lately.

Will take a look at your schedule in a bit!

 

[IUfan]

Maybe it's a relationship between tank/water params and light intensity. When I first got radions I had no idea that you could have too much light, and they would ramp up and be at 100% intensity and all colors for most of the day. I never had any issues for 6+ months, colors looked good and seemed healthy. I wasn't impressed with the growth, so I then learnt that I might have it set too high so I lowered the intensity and I've been chasing ever since.

AJ and Aww, thanks for sharing, I'll take a closer look at those schedules.

Murphy, Just got home after a week away, and most of my corals are totally browned out with the flesh sort of peeling off them. Tank just looks dull, I think I might be too low as I am, I think I need to go higher intensity.

While I was away I did my best to draw up Rovsters schedule, and just uploaded it to give it a try.

 

[cdmurphy]

IUfan, what are your parameters? From what you're describing it sounds like there is something else effecting your coral. What salt do you use? I'd suggest using the acclimation mode when changing your schedule. I've found that a two week acclimation mode at 75% works well for me. Keep us posted on the new lighting schedule. Good luck mate.

 

[IUfan]

Will do some tests tomorrow to get an up to date result on params.

Hooked up a calcium reactor just over a month ago so been tracking that.

Po4 when I've tested (with hanna ULR checker) has always been pretty low, but have been battling a bit of dino so maybe the Po4 is just locked up in the dinos?

Long story short, I crashed my super healthy tank about July '14, dosed ich x when I got paranoid I had contracted ICH, turned out to be nothing (ich x label says reef tested & I'm a moron)

About that same time, just before, I also changed up my lighting schedule to a lower range of intensities.

After ich x dose, overnight I bleached all my SPS, tank recovered or so I thought, since then dinos started and any new SPS I put in either bleaches or more recently Browns out.

So thinking that the tank is recovered from the ich x, but it's the lighting that I changed just before that's causing my issues.

Will keep experimenting and trying to fix this, thanks for your help and support so far guys.

 

[IUfan]

Oh, last few tests.

Tested Po4 back in December and was 0.06.

 

[rovster]

That's not my schedule, lol. I can post mine this week but it's just what I made up and makes sense to me. I've noticed that the corals that are within the lights look best. The farther away towards the edges they loose a bit of pop. Like stated previously, I am on the rebound after a crash, but all my "survivors" are starting to encrust and color up again.

 

[IUfan]

Oh it's just how I interpreted your post, 12 hrs, ramping from blue - 20K - 12K & then back down.

 

[rovster]

Here is my schedule. I reduced the intensity because I'm acclimating a few new corals but I was at around 65% when the pics I posted were taken....





Basically its a quick ramp up to 12K and a slow ramp down. I purposely did the 12K earlier because I'm usually not home. I prefer the bluer look for viewing and its more relaxing in the afternoon and at night for me. I was going for a broad flat curve with lots of intensity as opposed to ramping up to a point and back down. All points are at reatively 100% and the 12K is at 80ish if not it would be a spike of intensity. Its still a spike, but not crazy. My favorite setting for daytime is 14K. Love that look, but late at night I like that disco blue, LOL!

Not proclaiming to be an expert, just sharing what's working for me. My lights are about 13" off the water.

 

[miggs76]

I have the radion pro gen 2 and recently followed ajcanale's (who posted earlier on this thread) advice about turning the whites down. I'm seeing some nice changes in color after about 4 weeks. I'm going to give it a good 2-3 months without touching anything and see how things go. I have all SPS and here is the problem that I have had in the past: When I had the pro initially up to about 70% I had a light brown color tint to most of my acros. I figured that was because there wasn't enough light.....brown color = not enough light, right? My nutrient levels were very low....nitrate <1 and phosphate <.04. so the browning had to be the lights, right? I boosted the light up to about 80% and the brown tint was still there. Well as soon as I turned down the lights after a week or so the brown tint started to melt away on many of my acros. I don't really understand why the acros wouldn't have initially turned white instead of brown but maybe it is an LED thing. Anyway, I also raised the light to about 12 inches off the water line instead of the 8 that I had it. It is over a 2ft cube. I'm really hoping these changes work and I have a good feeling about it. If summer time comes and I'm still not seeing the colors on my acros that I think they should have I may supplement the radion pro with a few t5 bulbs.

My other problem that I seem to have (and I think other radion users have too) is the fact that my acro polyps only seem to come out at night. I don't think this is a big issue, I'm just curious as to the reason. I do have a yellow clown goby but he doesn't nip, just perches on acros. He actually does this during the night too so I don't think that is the reason they are not out in the day.

 

[rovster]

I have great polyp extension during the day, and insane at night. I think that has more to do with flow. Keep in mind, lower nutrient systems do better with less intense light. More nutrients, more you can crank it up.

Light brown tells me too much light or too little nutrients. Its different when its that deep turd brown. I think its just about finding that happy place and leaving it there....

Here are some typical polyp extension shots..

bonsai....typically little polyp extension, but this is almost as good as it gets, LOL!



Tort...



Plana, this one could use some more light...


All my milles have ridiculous polyp extension....


Tenius....

 

[miggs76]

mmmmm.....that is a lot of polyp extension......I have an MP40 and an MP10 on a 60 gallon cube so I don't see how it is possible that I don't have enough flow.

 

[rovster]

Maybe they need time. I do have ridiculous flow though. That mille I posted you cant even see the body at times is so shaggy.

 

[miggs76]

Maybe they need time. I do have ridiculous flow though. That mille I posted you cant even see the body at times is so shaggy.

well whatever you are doing seems to be working great!

 

[IUfan]

Rovster! They are amazing pics! Absolutely great health!

I thought that bleaching meant too much light?

And browning was not enough light?

Even though my tests say that I don't have high phosphate or nitrate, I would say I have high nutrients.

 

[doctorwhoreefer]

Nice pics!

I need to get a darn camera so I can post mine, the led's are so much better for getting a glow. I call my 20k to blue spectral change around 5-6pm 'prime time'. (my gf laughed at that but then quickly discovered what I was talking about!)

IUFan, I would probably just try to keep phosphate under .1.
So far red sea and triton both say keep phosphates at .08-.1 iirc. This got me thinking, so I tried it and stopped trying to get 0, made a world of difference for the corals.
If you have abunch of diatoms or algae, just toss in some more hermit crabs. Pays off in the end imo as they work 24/7 to manually remove any algae/etc from around the tank and corals.

 

[rovster]

Thanks. Its really hard to get good pics under LEDs. Under halide or T5 everyone looks like a pro! Its just point and shoot. All those pics above are straight out of the camera, but you can tell the white balance is slightly off. I'm colorblind so any kind of color correction in post processing is an exercise in futility for me, LOL!

Fortunatey, all but one of the above corals survived my crash. They are almost back to their former glory

 

[rovster]

Rovster! They are amazing pics! Absolutely great health!

I thought that bleaching meant too much light?

And browning was not enough light?

Even though my tests say that I don't have high phosphate or nitrate, I would say I have high nutrients.

Not always. There is a difference between turd brown and lets say a light tan. Many corals will turn a light tan when starving for nutrients. It looks almost like a "bleached brown" for lack of better descriptor.

Here's an example.
This millie when I first got it was slightly bleached. It was probably a combination of shipping stress and other factors. This is the light tan washed out look that to me screams needs nutrients or possibly less light.




Here is a pic of the tort I posted earlier from a few months previous. Again, that "washed out" look screams too much light OR too little nutrients, in my case it was nutrients....


This is turd brown...needs more light!



This is the same mille from above after my tank went super low nutrients a while back...


I could go all day. What I'm getting at is look at your corals and make adjustments based on what you see. You want thick colorful skin, and rich colors. When they start going pastel and "bleachy" they are starving or its too much light. If they darken, and go turd brown its the opposite. Light tan is in the former category.

I hope I don't derail this thread too much, but when you've been doing this a while you pick up on these things.

 

[miggs76]

Not always. There is a difference between turd brown and lets say a light tan. Many corals will turn a light tan when starving for nutrients. It looks almost like a "bleached brown" for lack of better descriptor.

Here's an example.
This millie when I first got it was slightly bleached. It was probably a combination of shipping stress and other factors. This is the light tan washed out look that to me screams needs nutrients or possibly less light.




Here is a pic of the tort I posted earlier from a few months previous. Again, that "washed out" look screams too much light OR too little nutrients, in my case it was nutrients....


This is turd brown...needs more light!



This is the same mille from above after my tank went super low nutrients a while back...


I could go all day. What I'm getting at is look at your corals and make adjustments based on what you see. You want thick colorful skin, and rich colors. When they start going pastel and "bleachy" they are starving or its too much light. If they darken, and go turd brown its the opposite. Light tan is in the former category.

I hope I don't derail this thread too much, but when you've been doing this a while you pick up on these things.

Not trying to hijack but this would benefit OP too I believe: What did you do to increase your nutrients? Just feed your fish several times per day, or did you specifically feed your corals? If so, what did you feed?