I have the 400 series. Honestly, the jury is still out on this lighting for me until I get some more SPS corals in my tank. I will be adding SPS soon. The SPS corals I have now have open polyps and seem to be doing well.
I am a gadget geek, so my opinion may be a bit skewed. From a functionality standpoint, I love it. Turn it on when you install it, program it and then forget it. Program in the date, time, which hemisphere you want, and then it does everything else on its own. Sunrise, full sun, 5-15 minute cloud pass overs, sunset, and the 28 lunar phases. The unit generates about 110 degrees, but I see virtually no heat transfer and I have a fraction of the evaporation that many others experience.
My worries/concerns are more associated with my tank. My tank is very deep and very wide and the length puts me in an odd position. The tank is 60", but, with the canopy, I cannot fit a 60" fixture in it, so I had to go with a 48" unit. In retrospect, and this is something that I discussed with Solaris before I got my unit, I should have gone with either 2 or 3 24" units. The 48" unit on my tank leaves some areas on the sides with less than optimal levels of light. It should be ok for me, as I like mixed reef tanks and will put corals that require less/subdued light on the ends. Also, with my tank being 24" wide and having a 3" glass lip that overhangs the inside of the tank, similar to an acrylic tank, my light penetration in the front of the tank to the sand bed may be affected. I can't tell for sure, I may be just worrying, but I will know when I put a clam in the sand bed.
When I bought mine, I went to several of the threads here at RC and PM'd all of the people that said that they had one. At this time, it was only made in a 250 watt version. *EVERY* person that had one said that they loved it and would do it again. That was good enough for me. When I got wind of the 400 watt, I knew I was sold.
The LED lighting seems to really fire some people up. They accuse anyone that has one as being "too embarrassed to admit they got screwed" and/or ignorant to proper reef lighting. The most vocal dissenters mostly seem to have never even seen one, let alone used one.
I can tell you that the Shedd is getting one and possibly more. They are getting the one to start with because of the light cycle. They are trying to breed a certain light sensitive species of fish and the Solaris light cycle is about as natural as you can get with artificial lighting and they believe that this will help encourage the fish to spawn. I have heard from Solaris owners that they have seen increased spawning in both corals and fish.
The best I can tell you is, if you are going for a hard core SPS dominated tank that is more than 20" deep, you might be safer to go with MH. If you are going for a mixed reef tank with SPS higher on the live rock and LPS, zoas, and soft corals lower down the water column (more natural IMHO), go with the Solaris. I guarantee I have less evaporation, lower electric bills, no bulb change expenses and headaches, and far less (zero) issues with timers and schedules.
You are welcome to come see it (and anyone else that wants to, for that matter).
I hope this helps.
