You don't ever NEED actinic suppliments. They are to help make the tank look more visually appealing, and to provide your corals with more blue spectrum to simulate what happens in nature because blue spectrum light penetrates water further than other spectrums, so corals are used to getting more blue. And for dust/dawn effect as you said.
You will likely get more growth out of 10K MHs supplimented with actinic VHOs, but you are also getting a lot more par because of the 10K vs. say 14K or 20K, and the additiona watts of VHO will add some too.
That said, you are running a 230g with 150w HQIs. How deep is your tank? You should probably keep the VHOs until you upgrade your MH lighting to 400w, assuming your tank is 24" or deeper, and I believe a standard 230g is 30" tall. It also depends what you are keeping. If you want to keep just softies you are fine, but if you want anemonies, clams, LPS on the bottom of the tank, or SPS, you will need more light to penetrate that deep of a tank.
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03-14-2006, 06:17 PM
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