Explain your lighting choices

[Europhyllia]

i had MH's but to keep my tank at 78-79 degrees it was costing us nearly 400 dollars a month (chiller and magnetic ballast/SE bulbs) i went to t5's and the next months bill went to 200$. now my chiller doesn't come on with the t5's

"I have a couple of actinics but they only show before and after the white lights turn off."

i would run them the whole time just my .02

Oh yes. What Allan says. What I meant is that the actinic bulbs are on a 9:30 AM to 10:30 PM schedule while the white bulbs are on a 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM schedule.
So only in that half an hour before and after the whites come on is the tank visibly blue (even though the actinics are still on when the whites are on too)
I actually just decided to up the ratio of whites to actnics after learning how little PAR the actinics contribute to the tank so it's even less blue now. ;)
I wish I had purchased a T5 fixture with more bulbs to play a little more with colors. I might upgrade in a few months to an ATI Sunpower with more bulbs.
Right now I only have 4 80W bulbs so I want to get as much usable light for my corals out of them as I can.

Wow Gseclipse that's impressive about your electricity!
That was actually a big factor in my decision to skip the MHs and go for all T5s as well. Paying 40% extra in energy to make heat when I don't need/want it and then paying extra again to get rid of that excess heat just didn't make sense.

Somebody mentioned the other day to augment their T5 set up with LEDs to get that halide shimmer. That sounded interesting too.
Anybody done that?

Karin