I went to visit a reefer in Surrey a few years ago, he had the most amazing tanks, SPS and all and it was beautiful. He kept it all with NO tubes, yep, home depot stuff plus some actinics. Now the thing is, his corals probably grew slower but it did grow. If I remember right, his Acros were close to the top.
Yes I agree with everyone else you can keep sps under T5, spend the money on a good fixture though, I used cheap fixtures and they ended up wet on the inside and only lasting about 6 months. They had open eneds etc... Someone said individual refelctors, I think it's a great idea. When my tank was new I had a 400 watt SE bulb over it (for a few days) but when I went to a good reflector and 250 watt DE HQI I beleive I noticed a big difference, the 250 was brighter, granted there was a different reflector, electronic ballast vs mag ballast and the new one being HQI it may be like comparing a kia to a maserati, I guess what I'm trying to say is, the more you try to improve the overall quality the better, not just the tubes themselves.
Douglas
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