I have a red sea max. I love it! I have been running it for over a year now. The lighting is actually very good. They are flourecent lights that put out T5 lighting. Didnt find that out until after i recieved my tank. The only cons are that it takes the skimmer a month or so to break in and due to this micro bubbles are present until then, and to help with filtering I added an external canister filter b/c it doesn't have the best filtering. I haven't had issues with my pumps, but have read a lot of negatives on them. I heard red sea has released better pumps recently anyhow. all in all I'm very happy. The tank is expensive, but it's great quality and great customer service.