Each socket on the DC8 can handle up to 5 amps, if you go any higher you'll fry that particular socket (... like I did). Altogether the DC8 can handle up to 15 amps. Check and see what your ballast says. If they do draw too much you can get either a DC4HD or a Socket Expansion. Or if you're handy you can make a Socket Expansion yourself... I'm not handy enough to do that but some people say it can be done.
http://www.neptunesys.com/~clp//inde...d=13&Itemid=40
I've been using my ACIII for about 18 months now and I'm quite happy with it. I've found it to be quite reliable and once you get the hang of it pretty easy to use.
However I'm not overly computer literate so I found the directions to make the controller web accessible to be quite confusing... and I can still only access mine from my home PC. But I do have it set to send me emails and text messages should something go wrong so I guess thats good enough. I also used Aquanotes and a PC Serial Cable for a while but I found Aquanotes to be about as stable as Windows 95. So now I just use the web server interface.