lighting questions - quad pc's, differences, etc.

[fizztech]

I recently bought new bulbs for my pc hood. I did have 2 96 watt 50/50’s. With this old setup my polyps flourished. When I went to get new bulbs my LFS said, “you can use a 10,000k and an actinic side by side and it will do the same thing.” Well I found out this is not true my buttons get “burned” with the 10,000k and the actinic does not seem bright enough for my star polyps. Neither are opened all the way.
Anyways here are my questions:
1.Does coral prefer different kinds of light (as in actinic or white) if so what do buttons and star polyps prefer?
2.Does actinic even count as light or does it just add a blue hue to the tank? Like I hear it called supplemental lighting… what is this? Although I have 2 96 watts am I only getting useful light from the 10k?
3.I am looking at replacing the actinic with a 50/50 quad pc. Does anyone have experience with these? Are they better, if so how?

 

[fizztech]

:::bump::: can anyone answer any of the questions?

 

[neowind]

From what I have heard when you change your lighting your corals will have to acclimate to it just like fish do to the water. After a week or so your corals should do better with 1 10k and 1 actinic 03 bulb. The 10k will allow for more growth than the 50/50 bulbs. I am not a fan at all of the 50/50 bulbs. I would love to know if the quad lighting is better than the standard bulbs. I would also like to know if the Actinic light is considered actual light or not.

 

[fizztech]

well its been over two weeks so i think there acclimated as much as they are gonna be. Also i was talking about replacing the actinic with 50/50 so there will be more 10k. If my true actinic does not supply usefull lighting for any of my corals. So anyone have anymore input?:notsure:

 

[fizztech]

bump