The color and viewing pleasure was best with
VHO.
And I prefer PCs for my viewing pleasure, but I'm used to the "
VHO is better than anything else" philosophy by now. As I just stated,
VHO offers a greater variety of bulb types over
PC because they aren't as difficult to manufacture being a more conventional tube size, and that means a greater degree of customization and lighting type available. The best looking tanks I've seen are shallow reef tanks with a combination of
PC or
VHO actinic and low temp (5000-6000k) T5s to fill in the reds. I'll stick to
PC's regardless and shift to T5 when it becomes more mainstream. I didn't get into this hobby to spend large amount of time stringing transformers off my tanks and buying exotic tubes that I can't find on the rack at my
LFS.
As stated earlier, the main difference is the depth of the penetration of the useable light.
Because
PC's have a greater concentrated light source. The thinner the tube, the greater the light intensity. More tubes diffused over a wider area does not get the same water penetration.
Get the right spectrum for your needs from the beginning.
That was a bit rude, wasn't it??? Maybe I'll contact GE and have them make me a special triple phosphor to my liking. Marine organisms could care less if you're lighting them with a notch spectrum light such as a true actinic, or filtering a broader band lighting to get what you want - the later is simply less efficient. 10,000k lights still have too much green/yellor for my liking, and the magenta sleeve filters that crap out while making the tank look better. Nobody makes a florescent tube with a supressed middle visible band that I'm aware of.
