Dana,
I truly believe you are missing the whole point here. There are a lot of hobbyists out here “myself included†who WANT to use the latest and best technology on their Reef systems available. I myself am more than willing to purchase a LED hood, when “AND ONLY WHEN†they can meet the requirements that my Reef/SPS tank needs. There is absolutely nothing against PFO, as I use a custom PFO MH/VHO fixture as my primary lighting over my main display currently, and I absolutely love it. It is a first class unit.
As far as your claim to purchase your Solaris, in your article you did claim to receive a beta unit.
QUOTE: “I was fortunate enough to receive a beta model from PFO for testing. Although this prototype lacks some of the progressive features of the production models, it enabled me to evaluate a high intensity LED array. The prototype I received has 25 3-watt LED lamps (13 blue and 12 white) with an advertised Kelvin rating of 20,000†unquote
As far as the article is concerned, truly Dana Riddle, to me, this did read like a biased advertisement. I was disappointed to say the least that you did not perform any “real world†testing on this unit. And not like you performed any tests that did not reiterate/propagate PFO’s own biased claims. Did you check this, or did you just take PFO’s word for it before you printed it?
QUOTE: “PFO claims the electronics within the luminaire are encapsulated with a material impervious to the inevitable salt spray. Unprotected circuitry was an issue with some of the LED banks produced 5 or so years ago. PFO has apparently overcome this problem and their protective circuit coating should go a long way in preventing corrosion.â€Âunquote
You claim to have tested the LED light fixture against a lamp that is not used in the real world reef/sps systems, as did PFO. I.E: the LED performed at X% PAR as compared to X MH, which in the real world is only X% of PAR compared to a bulb that is actually used in this hobby. This is “REEF CENTRAL†BTW and most of us have reef tanks and many have SPS, and we have been keeping an eye on LED technology. Are you telling me now that the SOLARIS unit will meet all the lighting requirements/needs of my SPS/Reef Tank?
I guess I’ll wait for Sanjay’s test, at least we can be rest assured that his testing will be more unskewed/real world unbiased testing that we have all been looking forward to, so we can make a better decision on whether this technology has truly reached our hobby yet.
Thank you all for your time.
I've bitten my tongue so many times reading some of the crap you mentioned above. You go Cliff Clavin 
IF these answers are even remotely correct, who has time to calculate this sort of useless trivia/facts? Someone who's 46 and lives at home with their mother 
The tone of these posts kinda reminds me of some of the bare-bottom posters who used to cause arguements (before that mass exodus), let's try not to relive those days...
