should i change my lighting?

ok first off my tank is a 46 gal bowfront tank with about 50 lbs of lr and a few corals consisting of a kenya tree,button polyps,mushrooms,and a spaghetti finger leather. my current lighting is a 2x96 watt pc made by oddysea. the bulbs are a 10k and an actinic 460nm. the light only has one switch for both the bulbs and a switch for the moonlights so i don't have much control over how long i keep the actinic on. i have been reading alot about t5s and was wondering if they are the way to go. i do not have a canopy over the tank so i need something that will look tasteful. and i would also like to know if anyone knows of a cheaper place to get fixtures instead of marine depot or F&S. i would not be really worried about changing the lights but the pc's i have now get really hot and heat the tank a good bit. thanks for all the help

 

also any ideas on building a canopy for a 46 gallon bow front would help alot

 

i don't see anything wrong with your light accept idk much about that particular brand.is that those lights that aqua trader sells?if so they have an extremely bad rep. in just about any forum i ever seen them mentioned in,and the bulbs are low low quality.i think any other light will be hotter,accept l.e.d. lights or t5's.your pc light is basically a t5 light thats bent in a u shape,making it slightly more efficient than a vho with a longer lasting bulb,but less efficient than a t5 being that its wider and more light reflects onto itself from its reflector.you could set mh bulbs up in a way that did'nt over heat your tank with fans and such,but i don't see why when you just have softies.

 

the fixture did come with low quality bulbs but i did replace them with coralife bulbs as soon as i got it. as for the rest of the light i have had no problems other than the ballast that went bad after about a year and a half and i replaced it with a coralife ballast for and aqualight.

 

cool.if you have it up off the top of the tank a cpl inches you should'nt be having heat problems.maybe the heat is coming from something else.i had a powersweep blower that used to heat my water alot.i have a pond pump in my sump that heats the water a bit.

 

t5s

i have the nova ex light x8 bulbs from foster and smith and it is bright it took some time to get use to because of how bright it is. but i have a few sps growing in there. but they dont grow as fast as mh but the softys grow very fast under the nova ex i have it on a 55g reg.

 

im running a t5 by tek light its only a 4 bulb fixture but its only a 55gal and 16" from top of tank to top of sand. and its a brighter and cooler than my coralife 4x65w pc fixture was. im really happy with the t5 set up. and my girlfriend has the nova extreme t5 4x39w (40gal tank) and she has a bunch of coral in her tank (im jellous her tank looks better than mine coral wise ) and she has a birdsnest, coreica(pardon the spelling) clam. zoa's xena, ric's. and others. everything seems to be doing GREAT!