is there a catch to this light?

Yeah, I've heard of people on reputable sites who have had their houses burned down cuz of bad lighting

 

all it takes is a bit of salt corrosion on the crappy halides and boom.

 

You bet your butt! the new advancements in this technology allows a lot of light from a small diode. youd be suprised!

You spend more upfront, obviously theyre not cheap, but in the long run. theyll last you 10,000 hrs and dont run hot or suck up as much engergy as halides. where youd change the bulbs at least every year.

 

led starting to sound pretty good, but how do i know what can be considered sufficient lighting?

 

in fact some leds in fact a lot of high quality, are more powerful the MH and offer a million color options

 

+1 you can go from a 10,000K to a deep 20,000K and if your feeling up to it, make it all red, green, yellow, depending on the fixture of course. DIY you can just put whatever colors you want and run em

 

By asking us I missed before how big is your tank what are the dimensions and what types of corals is there a center brace? is it glass bracing? all of these factore how many units you need.

if its a four foot tank with glass center brace, you can easily do 3 AI Sols at $400 a pop, or 2 Radion at about $900 a piece. IMO I would do AI if you buy manufactured, if you do DIY your probably going to pay half the price. IMO for your tank thats probably the best route.

 

I've seen some threads where they only use 2 AI sols over a 110g, with sps.

 

i have a 75 gallon tank with 2 fish, a couple of hermit crabs, a banded shrimp, small trumpet coral and small hammer coral

just starting out though so i plan on eventually adding some more corals and possibly more sensitive invertibrates