Help choosing a lighting fixture

[Orcrone]

I purchased my system used almost a year ago. For the purposes of this discussion I have a 125 gallon tank (72" wide) with two braces on top. I also have a PC hood containing six 96 watt bulbs. Until recently my tank only contained fish, inverts and some polyps I purchased as an "out of curiosity" purchase. But now I'm thinking of replacing the fixture for a couple of reasons:

I'm not confident of my current fixture's ability to provide adequate lighting to the bottom of the tank, especially if I decide to keep SPS corals.
We really like the 'shimmering' effect you get with metal halide lights.

So we started looking into metal halide/T5 fixtures. Our viewing angle is on a relatively low sitting love seat about six feet in front of the tank. The top of the tank is at 54" and I'd suspect the bottom of the light fixture will be 6 - 12" above that. Unfortunately sitting at that angle most fixtures would have us looking right into the metal halide bulbs. Additionally we'd like to avoid loud fans. That brought me to the Sfiligoi XR6 which seems to fit the bill very well.

Now Sfililgoi's come out with the Genesis T5/LED combination and the Genesis LED fixtures and I'm looking for some insight/suggestions. With the above stated goals of avoiding light in the eyes of the viewer (most important), shimmering effect (very important) and quiet operation (less important) I'd love to get some feedback.

Some other information:


I was not leaning towards LEDs because of the cost and what I believed to be a reduced shimmering effect. However, equipping a 72" XR6 with bulbs and ballasts brings the setup straight into the LED price range.
I learned recently that LEDs do about as good a job with shimmer as metal halides. Is that true?
It appears the Genesis fixtures are only available in sizes up to 5'. Will this be a problem with a 6' tank?
I'm not familiar with all the LED lingo. I notice that the Genesis LED and LED/T5 combination have a certain amount of control provided by the Apex. I have an Apex Lite Controller and was wondering about T5 dimming, LED dimming and RGB control.
I notice the LEDs are available in different blue/white ratios. I'm assuming that choice would be based upon personal color preference. I have two 10000K bulbs and four actinics currently in my system and I'd prefer something a bit more blue.

Sorry for being so long-winded but I'd like to learn all I can before making this decision.

[Aquatics Elite]

I purchased my system used almost a year ago. For the purposes of this discussion I have a 125 gallon tank (72" wide) with two braces on top. I also have a PC hood containing six 96 watt bulbs. Until recently my tank only contained fish, inverts and some polyps I purchased as an "out of curiosity" purchase. But now I'm thinking of replacing the fixture for a couple of reasons:

I'm not confident of my current fixture's ability to provide adequate lighting to the bottom of the tank, especially if I decide to keep SPS corals.
We really like the 'shimmering' effect you get with metal halide lights.

So we started looking into metal halide/T5 fixtures. Our viewing angle is on a relatively low sitting love seat about six feet in front of the tank. The top of the tank is at 54" and I'd suspect the bottom of the light fixture will be 6 - 12" above that. Unfortunately sitting at that angle most fixtures would have us looking right into the metal halide bulbs. Additionally we'd like to avoid loud fans. That brought me to the Sfiligoi XR6 which seems to fit the bill very well.

Now Sfililgoi's come out with the Genesis T5/LED combination and the Genesis LED fixtures and I'm looking for some insight/suggestions. With the above stated goals of avoiding light in the eyes of the viewer (most important), shimmering effect (very important) and quiet operation (less important) I'd love to get some feedback.

Some other information:


I was not leaning towards LEDs because of the cost and what I believed to be a reduced shimmering effect. However, equipping a 72" XR6 with bulbs and ballasts brings the setup straight into the LED price range.
I learned recently that LEDs do about as good a job with shimmer as metal halides. Is that true?
It appears the Genesis fixtures are only available in sizes up to 5'. Will this be a problem with a 6' tank?
I'm not familiar with all the LED lingo. I notice that the Genesis LED and LED/T5 combination have a certain amount of control provided by the Apex. I have an Apex Lite Controller and was wondering about T5 dimming, LED dimming and RGB control.
I notice the LEDs are available in different blue/white ratios. I'm assuming that choice would be based upon personal color preference. I have two 10000K bulbs and four actinics currently in my system and I'd prefer something a bit more blue.

Sorry for being so long-winded but I'd like to learn all I can before making this decision.

To answer your questions:

1 & 2 - The leds do provide a significant shimmer. However, on the Genesis T5 there would be slightly less due to the fact there are 8 T5's equipped as opposed to the Infinity which has 4. The additional T5's do absorb, or should I say take away, some of the shimmer effect. Based on my viewing of both the Genesis T5 and Stealth HQI, I can see no difference in the amount of shimmer produced and perhaps am more fond of the Genesis T5 as it produces a perfect, even output throughout the length of the aquarium whereas the Stealth is a little more unbalanced due to the separation of lamps.

3 - The 5' fixture is equipped with 80w T5's which are almost 20 more powerful per ft than lesser wattage tubes. This, in addition to the fact there never truly is a need to have a fixture of the same length since normally only low light substrate corals occupy the first few inches on either end of the aquarium. Any light spill is more than enough to satisfy.

4 - The Apex is a compatible controller for providing all aspects of control and dimming. Normally, white and blue occupy 2 channels of one of your controllers 0-10v input. For the addition of the Red and Green leds, this would add a second connection of 2 channels to you Apex. T5 dimming is the same, adding 2 more channels(4 T5's and 4T5's) to another input. I believe the std Apex has 2 0-10v DC inputs but a third would require expansion. I could be wrong though.

5 - The Genesis systems can be configured to your liking with either all white, all blue, or a mixture of 2:1 either way. It is personal preference. Should you want the 10-12k output of MH, then go 2:1 white to blue. If 20k look is more desirable, then go 2:1 blue to white. Having 8 T5's onboard goes a long way in allowing for fine tuning of the overall color spectrum you want to achieve

[Orcrone]

Thanks Tim. That answers most of my questions. I sent you another e-mail and should be making a decision tonight - even if it means flipping a coin.

[Aquatics Elite]

Thanks Tim. That answers most of my questions. I sent you another e-mail and should be making a decision tonight - even if it means flipping a coin.

Its good to know I am not the only one that lives by that method of decision making :lol2: