Anyone using AI Hydra 26's or Hydra 32's

@Jojo you have 26’s don’t you?

 

I would go with 32s over 26's. I dont love my 26s however I'm running over 40.

 

I bought a 26HD for a small frag tank. Corals would thrive under it, color was decent, a bit of the "disco ball" effect but I had it fairly close to the water. Didn't like that it could not be interfaced to my Apex, I thought this was a step backwards for AI when they went to the HD series. Wifi link was very weak, would only reach about 10 feet so I moved my router right next to the tank but never could get it linked no matter what. Without it being linked to the AI server it would not keep very good time and if the power blinked it's internal clock would go way off or lose programming all together. After about a year and a half it started having LEDs fail with only ever having any channel at 30% the most. I finally got fed up and replaced it with 2 small Kessils which I love.

 

Sorry for late response. I originally had the 26s on my main and upgraded quickly to the 52s. I dont feel like the 26s color up coral as well especially sps.

 

My frag tank is 24"x24" but I have a bunch of rock piled on one side and use an area about 24"x20" for frags. One of my issues is there is very little overhead space so I need a light with a low profile. With the 26 it ended up about 7" off of the surface and the frag rack is about 7" under the surface therefor most channels only ran around 20% and still had plenty of light for SPS. I think how close everything was greatly amplified the disco effect but the overall color was good and corals grew well. With this situation I swapped it out for 2 Kessil A80s. I like just plugging them into my APEX and programming in Fusion. I have these at 80% and it's doing well. I have had several Kessils and have been very happy with them. I had A150s on my 90 and swapped them for A160s when they came out for controllability. I run 3 of those at 80% and one pair of T5s (ATI actinic and coral plus) and my coral thrive...mixed tank but mostly SPS. If it weren't for the reliability issues I would have been very happy with the AIs with the only dislike being not having control via APEX.

As for the 26 v.s. the 52, the 52 is just like putting 2 of the 26s end to end. Same pucks, same output per puck. It's just cheaper to buy one 52 than two 26s.