HQI bulb recommendation, more confused than evah.

[polyppetey]

Been reading about bulbs, time to replace mine. I have a dual 150 watt HQI system with 4 25 watt actinics

 

I am running LSE ulbs now and have had then for about 14 months. Yup they are the e-bay ones. I think they are good bulbs but the 14K ones I got are closer to a 10K and I do not have much flourescense.

 

My actinics are 2 geissman 420 ultra blues, 1 coralvue blue and another 460 nm bulb. When the halides are off the tank looks good but when they are on I do not get much "pop".

Another consideration is that I have a lot of zoas, many I give away to friends when thye grow out and they always look better in other peoples tanks, go figure. I got some RPE zoas a while ago with some bam-bam's and the bam-bams went from day go orange to a brown color in my tank, the RPE's have darkened as well.

 

Anyway I would like to buy new lights, I am looking for recommendations based on experience.

I'm looking for a balance between the highest par ( tank is 24 inches deep) and something that will color up my corals and zoanthids. I have about 12 SPS and a few LPS. I have an awesome rainbow Stylophora it has since browned up too :-(.

 

Anyone?? Thanks.