[Skimmin]

When it comes to water and lighting it's tough to say what is right or wrong. I will give you my scenario as one example. I live outside of Edmonton and I do NOT trust the well water out here (even with an ro/di unit). So every week or two I haul water in 5gal buckets from where I work (Morinville but Edmonton city water). I circulate my fresh water in a rubbermaid container and only add Prime (3 times the recommended dosage) to treat my water. I have never had any problem with phosphates, ammonia, hair algae or any other potential water quality issues. Another aspect that may help to keep my tank free of water quality issues may potentially be the large refugium built into my sump(I'll never have a tank without one because it offers so much extra biological filteration) So in my scenario I just keep using tap water with Prime. I have also never needed a phosban reactor or any other fancy equipment to keep my water in check(although I am looking into a calcium reactor for Ca and Kh stabillity). Like I said before, this is only my scenario so I'm not saying right or wrong. As for lighting if you want the allround most versatile lighting you may want to look at a halide/t5 combo. I have a halide/powercompact light right now but I am in the middle of upgrading to a halide/t5 set up(in canopy)My tank is also a 120gal and with @ 150w halides and 2 96w pcs it is plenty of light for soft corals and LPS but I find it is somewhat lacking for some SPS. Typically with most of the tanks in the tanks of the month pictures, they are running high power halides (250w,400w with t5s/pcs) unless it is a soft coral and lps tank. Just my 2 cents.