mh's as atinics

[chad508]

i am currently using 3 250 watt mh's on my 180. they are all 10k xm bulbs. i was going to add 2 6ft vho atinics to help color up the tank and corals. would i be just as successful if i use 2 175 watt mh's with 20k xm bulbs? i know they may not be as blue as atinics but they should be close enough. and the power usage of the mh's and vho's should be about the same. if anyone has any thoughts, input are experiance with this set up please chime in. picvs would also be great

 

[Entropy]

I think it would work fine, but the cost is substantially more that just getting new actinics, but there would be more heat IMO, plus an extra 130w of power.