What I'd do differently next time.

[Buccaneer]

@ Shane ... the advice for air circulation is well noted ... my 4 X 400W MH hood is from my old 330G tank in my last house and it DID generate quite a bit of heat ... I had a 6" fan that I rigged up from Princess auto and it did a pretty good job. Because this tank will be in a more enclosed space I planned to rig up a exhaust fan to a humidistat ... also all the walls will be aquaboard or equivalent waterproof drywall with a epoxy coated paint ... seperate dedicated circuits for electrical for the tank, theater and gym

At one point I did consider LED but from what I have read we are still about 2 years away from PAR that is inline or better than that of MH. ( and the solaris hoods are stupid expensive )

One thing I did consider is that there was a european tank that I saw a while back that was run exclusively with T5's and it was absolutely beautiful ... I may consider going that way and supplement with a couple low power MH ( maybe 175W ) to add the " shimmer " as I dont think I could own a SW tank and not see that shimmer effect on the sand.