How would you light up a sps dominant system?

[Scythanith]

My 2 cents:
Metal halides with LED supplementation if you want faster growth and controllable colour. T5's if you want a little less heat and space savings. Less shadow than LED.
LED's if you want ultimate colour control and ramping, but don't mind gambling on growth rates and coral colour.

[Aquattro]

For absolute best color, I still go with 400w radium. If I had to factor in aesthetics, I'd probably go for the ATI hybrid light. Although, aesthetics was a big concern on my current build, and I think I did a reasonable job with my canopy.
Power is about the same, depending on what you spend, long term may be the same. I'm pretty sure all my old LED pendants are all dead, less than 4 years old.
All T5 is nice, but no shimmer is a deal breaker for me. You're used to MH, you'd miss it.
LED has ramping effects, that's something I miss from the LED units. The hybrid would give you all of that, maybe even color to rival MH.

While I bash LED often enough, if I had to rate color with MH being a 10, LED would still be an 8.5. T5 I give a 9.

Modern LED get points for low profile fancy looks when that has a big component to your build. While my canopy looks good, it is bigger than any LED fixture.

If I had bought the ATI hybrid as my first LED system, I may have stuck with it. Big initial price though.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

If I had bought the ATI hybrid as my first LED system, I may have stuck with it. Big initial price though.

Agreed. I wish I had just stuck with it when it was first ordered. Spent more than that since on different leds.

[xenon]

We use ReefBrite Halide hybrids on our SPS system with 6ft long XHO LED's.

It's not the best looking but the results we get from 400W Radiums is incredible.

[smokinreefer]

my building skills are... functional only...
I will have to buy something turn key for sure!

That Reefbrite MH/LED hybrid is interesting... that's the first one I've seen.
though I would want it to have more LEDs, but that particular one is a little more industrial looking than I would want.

Yes, i'm thinking if I go MH ,it would have to be DE simply for the size of the fixture required.

but... I just realized, if I do not put a hood on the tank, would the light spill be too bothersome considering we would be sitting down at the dining table next to it???

i'd like to keep things as sleek and simple as possible, but we shall see I guess, I don't want people to be blinded while eating lol.

[Ram3500]

If you ran 6 kessils a360w you would be able to grow anything. You could also hanging them 8" off the water without any light spillage at all. My tank is in our great room and our couch in two feet away from my tank they light up your tank not the room. I think you could get away with five. I run three my tank is 56"L 24"w 26"h. Oh yeah no chiller just saying

[Ryanerickson]

400w halide radiums best option for color and growth

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Ram3500

Oh yeah no chiller just saying

always tank dependent. I've needed my chiller with all three lighting systems. More likely to need a chiller with MH, but not in all setups.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by smokinreefer

i'd like to keep things as sleek and simple as possible, but we shall see I guess, I don't want people to be blinded while eating lol.

Check out some of Brett's (lastlight) builds, he had a few nice sleek designs for his MH. I used his ideas and built a nice almost sleek light box suspended with a flat screen mounting arm. Overall happy with the aesthetics of the build.

[TimT]

If you choose to go MH I do have some used MH T5 combo fixtures as well as MH DE from Giesemann or Aqua Medic. Willing to give "Smokin" deals. Even have some new Vertex 250watt Electronic Ballasts as well as new BlueWaves.