Im so Undecided can you help me choose

Well I had pc's and I can say I wouldn't do those again. The colour of the corals wasn't that good and growth was minimal. In January I got 4x54watt t5ho's and I can say...wow. I personally prefer the look of fluorescents over MH. That's me. I wouldn't spend $1000 to get a shimmer affect, that's not important to me, I am not keeping clams or sps nor is my tank deep.

Now my corals have looked amazing since changing over to t5's and let me tell you how much they grew. My xenia have split and multiplied, they pulse now, and they are the colour they should be. My rics, wow, the ones I thought were a pinky colour are now a orangy/greeny/ pinky colour and 3 x's the size. My "purple" rics are actually multi colour rics, the frogspawn are green now, and my leather has doubled in size.

I am extremely happy with the t5's and my temp never changes, my pc's caused my temp to fluctuate. Just remember if you upgrade to acclimate your tank to the lighting to eliminate shocking and bleaching the corals and also to limit the algae growth. Hope this helps.

 

I belive that the LFS use MH because they make the corals look more appealing to the customers, not always because that is what is need for them to survive (other than hard to keep SPS). I personally use PC's for my 40G. It's not very deep at all. I have 2 clams also which have grown quite a bit in the short time I have had them. Same for my zenia's...IMO and 2 cents!