odyssea fixtures have always been a talkative subject on good or bad. all your going to get are opinions that are good or opinions that are bad. the only 2 bad things about the fixtures in my opinion were the ballasts and the fact that they are made in china or where ever. the quality of the fixture is good, looks like any other typical fixture, but its the little things that make it a little flimsy. like the screws are metal, yet break like plastic. the acrylic cover is more like a plastic cover, and gets stuck alot when you take the cover on and off. the LEDs are decent, but if you change the metal halide bulb and remove the glass covering the halide, you have to take off the metal around the LEDS which usually means you have to disconnect the LEDS, which can be a pain to put back on. But when it comes to performance, since april of this year, the company upgraded their ballasts to much much stronger and safer ballasts. the acrylic cover slits where the cover goes are cut out better and do not get stuck as easy, and the fans are a little stronger. i have owned about 5-6 odyssea fixtures from the power compacts, the T-5s and the halide little pendent, and now currently own and use the 36" single metal halide fixture with 4 T-5s. pretty much the same fixture your looking to get, but only a single MH. i have it on a 46 bow. i love it. for the money, its even better. i did not break the bank for it, and it does its job perfect, BUT of course there came some modifications i had to do to it. first thing was change EVERY bulb. dont even keep those bulbs for back up. they are garbage. their 12K white is the brightest yellow/white i have even seen and is a great bulb if you want a algae infested tank. its like pure sunlight hitting your tank. the actinics (which the fixture your looking to get ONLY come with 4 actinics) are so underpowered you cannot even see the blue. then the MH bulb is a joke. they give you a 15k i believe, not 20K. the 15K MH they have is like a 6.5K MH. pure yellow. it looks like those ugly neon yellow bulb fog lights people put in their older honda civic's. and the LEDS, they are pretty good, not the brightest for moon lights. if your corals are all the way at top, then it will look nice, besides that forget about it. SO, what i went with was this...
T-5 bulbs...
i took all the stock odyssea bulbs out and used them as light sabers because thats all they are good for. i put in a
ATI Blue Plus, a Fugi Purple, a Wave Point True Blue, and the new style Coralife 454mn Actinic. that alone did a huge improvement.
LEDS...
for the leds, like i said they are ok, but i wanted more. so you have a few choices. the little ballast for the LEDS it comes with are actually pretty good and stong. if you are good with wires, (which im not, but did it a few times and turned out great) you can take out all the LEDS and wire in 2 1-watt LEDs in each spot. each section on the LEDS fit 2 stock LEDS, and there are 4 spots on the Fixture, so a total of 8 leds come with it. you can fit 2 1-watt leds in each section that has the stock two. so you can end up with a total of 8 1-watt leds which will REALLY lit the tank up. i did this on two or three of the power compact fixtures they have. or you can wire in 3-watt leds, but only fit 1 in each spot, so a total of 4 leds. i have not tried that yet, but a buddy of mine did and he said it turned out great, even better then the 1-watters. OR your other option, which i have on mine right now, and is easier, but a little more money, is just get a Ice cap blue LED strip, or a WINGO led strip. i have an ice cap blue led strip on it. i was like 70 bucks from ocean gallery II. that lit the tank up GREAT at night. the colors of the corals at night were outstanding. and it comes with a mounting kit to screw right into the fixture. if you did two of these, then im sure it would be crazy blue, just one strip was good enough for me.
Metal Halide Bulb...
the metal halide they give you, AKA yellow civic fog bulb, is garbage. i put in a phenoix 14K on it and that 100% completed it. it looked amazing when i put that in. i am more then happy with the results after i put that bulb in.
after all set and done, i put a canopy over it and it looked perfect. better then i was expecting.
So, its up to you. if you get that fixture, dont be scared of the whole fire thing because all the new sytle ballasts they put on the fixtures are ten times safer. the others lit on fire apparently because either the ballast got soaked, or the wires got wet going into the outlet because the customers did not have a U or loop effect. the new ones are great. it does not even get extremely hot like some others do. i am more then happy with the fixture. its up to you though. this is all my opinion. ill post some pictures in a few to show you what i mean...
hope that helped a bit
