conflicting lighting schedule advice

[alienspacepirate]

Greetings,

I searched on here for previous posts and found a lot of different and conflicting information about lighting schedules. Some people say never to leave your MH on for longer than 4 hours, others have it on for 10. Some people do a complicated actenic/MH schedule others not.

I have a 75 gallon main tank with 2 65w actenic PC's that I leave on for 8 hours. I have 2 MH 150w bulbs that click on in the middle of that time for 3.5 hours. I have a mix of coral types hards and softs. I am not getting a lot of growth right now than when I had with full PC lighting on a 55 gal tank with a much more aggressive lighting schedule. I also have 2 more 65w white pc bulbs I just don't use since I invested in MH. My fuge light is on at night with 1 65w PC white and turns on dusk to dawn.

I am feeling about stepping up my lighting, but again I've heard so much conflicting advice even on these forums. What kind of setup would you make with what I have? I've thought about doing some exotic setups.. I just feel like the 2 actenics are so far too little light for the majority of the time but I dont want to burn the whole tank blowing MH for a long time.

[tebstan]

I don't have metal halides so I don't want to make a recommendation on your schedule.... but I'd like to point out that one big reason people have varying and complicated lighting schedules is heat.

What is your temperature? Morning, early afternoon, late afternoon, and evening. Do you have fans and/or chiller?