ATI vs Stock Bulbs

I've been reading quite a bit about how good ATI bulbs are lately as well as some occasional skepticism. After seeing how nice some of the members tanks look with ATI bulbs I decided to try them out for myself. The bulbs being replaced came stock with a Deep Blue Solarxtreme 4x39 36" fixture.

Deep Blue brand bulbs, front to back:
10k
Actinic
10K
Actinic

ATI bulbs, front to back:
Aquablue Special
Blue Plus
Aquablue Special
Purple Plus

Before and After pics:

 

looks good! you will be much happier I know I was when I swapped out to ATi's. Your corals will be happier too!

 

Very nice difference

 

Nice.. Which bulbs did you get? I've been wanting to update the 10k's that came with my aquaticlife fixture for some ati's

 

I replaced the two 10k with two Aquablue Special. I replaced the two Actinics with one Blue Plus and one Purple Plus.

 

Hmm... Thats pretty much what I was planning on doing, except for the purple. I really like how yours looks, just not sure if I would like the look of an additional blue over the purple.

 

I was originally thinking about 2 Aquablue and 2 Blue+. I ended up getting the purple+ to round out the color. I didn't want the tank to look too blue. Looking at tanks with the different bulb combos helped with the decision.

The other combo I saw and was thinking about was:
Blue+
Aquablue Special
Purple+
Blue+

 

very nice. i love my ATI bulbs!

 

With the purple how does the tank look with just the actinics on? Does it still look blue-ish or like a dimmer version of all four running? I'm not really looking for a blue color overall, just want to get rid of the slightly yellow color my 10k's have and go to a more white or white/ very slight blue combo.. I also thought about just replacing the 10 k's and using the stock actinincs but from research it seems I would get alot more par replacing the actinincs with ati's as well..

 

The is the combo i just did on my tank as well