I GOT MY HYDRA26HD
I owe a certain someone a huge thank you for hooking me up with this awesome light. I don't think they want to be mentioned, but you know who you are! Thanks so much, I owe you, buddy.
So... I got started setting up the light last night.
Packaged neatly, the whole set up just comes really well presented, similar to how cellphones are packed.
The unit is smaller than I imagined it to be and rather heavy. The unit looks robust. Even the plastic parts (fan and fan cover) are made of quality grade plastic.
One thing I have read across the board is difficulty in running the app. I personally had no difficulty getting the app to run, and I had a program set up in no time at all. I played with a few options first to get the hang of making a custom light schedule, but ultimately I knew that I was going to be using the David Saxby settings. Once I downloaded David's setting I went about tweaking the intensities and making the light colour pleasing to my eye. I turned down the blues by around five percent and added more white to David's preset. I was amazed at the colour of the cool white channel. It almost perfectly matches a 12k halide. The shimmer that the light adds is amazing. I also turned up the UV and violet slightly at sunrise and sunset.
I have also reduced overall intensity by around 50% from the default preset schedule. I have a small tank and I know I will end burning corals if I turn the light up to the maximum.
The light output of the hydra compared to my beloved 1201wifi is completely different. To give you an idea of the strength of these lights, I mistakenly put the Hydra face down on the armrest of my wife's couch. I began to edit my morning schedule, trying to reduce the blues, I think the intensity was around 60% and then... Eish, I'm in trouble
Ten seconds... Literally ten seconds!!! The lights burnt the couch fabric! These things are potent. This morning I put my 1201wifi on a piece of paper to see if it would do the same, even on 100% on all channels it couldn't even make a mark. It's interesting, I know the wattages are different and after all, we're comparing a 2k unit VS a 7k priced unit, it's clear that the Hydra should be better. When I went on reef central, Amazon, AI and a few other websites, I saw that even comparable wattage units, namely the UFO 8300, were being swapped out for the smaller 55watt AI primes because the primes had better PAR outputs. I spoke with the inappropriate reefer and he recommended the Prime over the UFO (follow him on youtube and IG, that oke is a machine) (he was asked to test the UFO by Zetlight
). That's why I chose to go with a hydra over Zetlight. I love the transparency that they have about performance. There are no surprises. Anyway, I'm not here to bash Zetlight, my unit worked well for its intended use, and I am certainly happy with what it gave me for what I paid. I would certainly have not changed a thing. I was on a budget, and that light did the job!
So I have set up the light, which didn't take long. The flex arm is ridiculously strong, and very well made. The unit looks appealing to me, and I'm happy I went with the flex arm. I have mounted the light quite high above the surface. I have plenty of power to play with, so I wanted to get the best even spread across the tank, thus I had it placed at 38cm above the water surface. I am getting good colour mixing and (visually) the spread seems to be fairly even.
Colour blending, shimmer, coral-pop, intensity, and colour choice are substantially better (but that should be obvious). I no longer have to run every channel at-or-near it's maximum, hoping blindly that I would get enough PUR to keep my corals. Now I am able to play around with the settings a bit. The app is great because as you change your colour channels, it superimposes a watermark of the light spectrum behind the channel sliders, so you get an indication of how playing with each channel affects PAR. Pretty fricken cool. I have had an opportunity to see and play with an XR 15 gen 2 before, and this seems to be better on all fronts. Of course, the Radion gen 3 and now the gen 4 are a significant step above the hydra26; but for its price, I think I've hit the sweet spot with my new Hydra. There was a reason Echotech bought out AI, these lights belong in their range.
Of course, the lights aren't perfect though. One issue I had was the base mounting plate is rather bulky. It's plastic too. Everything else is aluminium and stainless, so having a plastic (albeit a sturdy piece) just seems like a cost-cutting measure. The whole unit, arm, bracket, and light are really solid, but the plastic base reduces the sturdiness of the complete unit. Other than that, the hydra is an amazing unit, the GUI is user-friendly and the Apps functionality is limited by how much time you have to play. If you have the time, you could program absolutely anything into the unit.
Epic way to start the weekend!