A little background: The original Actinic bulb was made by Philips. They had several models, the Actinic 01, 03, 05, etc. They were not made for aquarium use, but were adopted once news spread about the beneficial aspects of using this bulb over reef tanks. Nowadays, "Actinic 03" has become the marketing term used to identify "blue" looking bulbs. Many bulbs are passed off as "actinic", when they are just a blue bulb.

So, to answer the question, Blue 7,100K bulbs are visually brighter than HelloLights Actinic bulbs. Blue bulbs will NOT fluoresce your animals as well as our Actinic bulbs. Many others sell "actinic", but they are really selling blue bulbs. The phosphors coating the interior of our Actinic bulbs are specially formulated to produce a narrow spike of concentrated violet/blue light. This is why they appear to be more faint than blue bulbs. If you have tons-o-corals, then we suggest going with Actinic 03. Remember, a visual measurement of a lights utility is a poor one.

Yes, assuming of course that your corals have the correct pigments (i.e. green). It will also not be as noticeable, since it's not an Actinic only. The 10,000K will wash out some of the visual fluorescing.

Just wire up 1 lamp per the wiring diagram and safely cap off the wires for the other lamp using wire nuts. This would allow you to run a single lamp.

This ballast will "run" T5 HO lamps, however, it's not recommended for T5 due to performance degradation. Sure, the AS-220 will light those lamps, but you will not get the performance out the lights that you think you are getting. Remember, if it claims to "do it all", be wary. With lighting, you should use the proper ballasts to drive the lamps they were designed for. This will give you the best possible performance for your aquarium.

No. The wires coming out of the ballast are copper coated with tin (like solder). Although they are silver in color, they are not aluminum, but rather solid copper covered with tin.

It depends. There can be many causes to that type of strobing effect. Most of the time, it occurs on new ballasts, and will go away after a few days. If it persists, then it could be a number of things, such as a bad ballast, incorrect ballast or even faulty endcaps. Give us a call at 888-405-1817 if it doesn't go away after a few days.

Here is the best way to summarize it:
5,000K = Warm daylight, slight hint of yellow when fired next to a 10,000K. Great for freshwater fish and plant tanks.
6,700K = Nice white, not as visually bright as a higher K bulb. Not as yellow as a 5,000K, also great for freshwater fish and plants.
8,800K = Strong, bright, crisp light, comparable to 10,000K.
10,000K = Bright crisp white light.

We stock the most popular color temps and bases available. We also can have a new style bulb made, if demand warrants. Let us know what you're looking for. If we get enough requests, we'll try and source it, or have it made.

We'd suspect that your lamp clips are too tight. Stretch them out lightly. The most common breaks we hear about are on the ends of the 2 tubes, where they are connected. This is a fragile area, and it can crack if you are not careful.