That looks really nice. How does the tank look to your eye?
Very pleasing and soothing. I'm incredibly impressed with both the intensity and spectrum of Aquatic Life's bulbs. Even more so because I assumed I would be swapping them out. When I talked with Dave on the phone about their bulbs, I knew they had really put some heart into their product. He had actually tested other bulbs on the market and worked up charts to compare their color spectrum. Their 420/460 bulb is very much an ATI Blue + with some purple hues. I think what pleased me the most was that they were doing this as a development tool rather than a marketing tool; and they were very open with their PAR readings compared with other bulbs.
The tank is bright, but not as blinding bright as the MHs. It looks better though. Many of the colors are crisper. Most notably my orange cap and Acropora. In fact, the Acropora shows pink with green and purple hues with purple polyps under the new fixture, while under the XM 20ks it looked washed out with no purple of any kind.
Marc, you touched on one of my concerns when moving away from T5s when you stated that the MHs looked better to your eyes than the T5s I test fired. I'm quite pleased at the look! More importantly, it's lighting the whole tank nicely. I fudged the fixture over to the left because I lose some real estate on the right where the peninsula overflow and powerheads are. Nothing grows there anyway.
LED moonlight supplements are just awesome. There's really 16 with this fixture, and the look is so cool!
One powercord and the integrated timer is a breeze. I'm in love with the fact you can turn any of the lights on and off while not affecting the time sequence. All you need to do is scroll back to "auto" for that particular set of lamps. The two fans come on when either set of T5 bulbs is activated, and they blow air towards the ballasts and out the center outlets. The fans are whisper quiet.
The acrylic shield is amazing. Yup, I got excited when I realized the acrylic shield is on a slide out tab and locks back into place. YOU DON'T NEED TO REMOVE ONE SCREW! It may seem like a silly thing to get all excited about, but if anyone, like me, had one of those old Tek fixtures and had to wrestle getting the acrylic shield out of there then you know why.
The hanging kit was a bit of a pain, but the quality is nice.
The reflectors are a very nice mirror finish. They are all one piece folded, but they are large for each bulb. Personally, I was concerned that they were one piece. It's actually a silly notion, because it's the same material, and each has a large, individual reflective surface. In essence, they do have individual reflectors. It's pretty innovative the spacing and angle of the reflectors in relation to the bulbs. These fixtures were originally designed with 13" wide tanks in mind....pushing to 18" Aquatic Life has been working on developing fixtures with wider tanks in mind.
Of course, I was concerned about going the route of what some would say is a middle of the road, more mainstream, fixture. This is especially true with only 4 bulbs in each bank. These bulbs go here, these there...for best results keep the sequence...yada yada. Here's the switch for your 420/460, here's the switch for your 700+. Obviously, for the seasoned reefer who wants to play with bulbs, this is an initial turn off. Folks it just works. Plain and simple. I'll go back to point one. Their bulbs are FAR better than I expected, and having a Blue + like bulb with purple tones is beyond my expectations.
I'm going to keep a close eye on things and observe my animals' reaction to the new light. Time will tell. For now, I'm ecstatic I can return to my original vision for this tank. :fish2:
