I had 2 ocean revive s026 panels which are basically China boxes and upgraded to an ATI 8x54 watt sunpower. Reason for switching, I was unable to get the growth and colors I desired from the LEDs and just wanted something that worked without having to do anything other than turn it on. Dimming and ramping are useless features to me and I just wanted my lights to work without a learning curve. LEDs are fine if you use the correctly. I didn't have the time or patience for them
I just had some generic full spectrum black China boxes with manual dimmers. They came with a tank setup I picked up on Craigslist to get back into the hobby and I was never really happy with them. The disco ball shimmer was really starting to drive me crazy.
The majority of the tanks I've been seeing lately having great success with both color and growth seem to be using T5 / led combos and I didn't have enough room in my canopy to add 4 t5 retros, so I picked up a cheap used aquatic life 6 bulb fixture some ati bulbs and a panorama blue LED strip.
This thread was a duplicate so thats why there was no original body to the first post. The master plan is to use this fixture as a tester and if things go well get an ati 6 or 8 bulb down the road with some better stunner strips.