Leds

Ive heard mixed. There are advantages to LED, less power consumption- you dont have to replace the bulbs. But with leds theres more "experimenting" with % colors and placement. I was told to use T5s. I have a 73 gal which started with a small programmable led basically to just control sunrise/sunset and 2 T5s. My dad has a 125 with a expensive steves kit. My coral is growing like crazy compared to his and his had been running longer. I recently added 2 more T5s to be able to change up the bulbs more. Also with leds you get more crisp colors and pop.

 

Iv. Dug and dug at LEDs lately. My honest opinion, they lack the most expensive component. UV LEDs.... 380 to 420nm. Chlorophyll a & b suffer without from my research. Top quality emitters in this range are expensive. 50$/watt for 380nm. 5$/watt for a 420nm. Cree xpg is 50c/watt for a bare emitter. (Just to note: an emitter to use for sterilization is around 600$ each. That's one emitter). And honestly one 6500k to one UV would probably look amazing.
If you look at spectral graphs a 6500 k has a good chunk of blue in it with a short spike in red. Looks very similar to a 10kk t5 spectral graph. I think 1 actinic (420nm peak) to 1 10kk looks nice.

Par ratings that include green and red spectrums are in usable by the coral. Green and red is added to promote the pop in colors and many manufacturers use those colors on their PAR charts.

Let's face it. If it was easy you'd plant it in dirt and give it tap water.

Orpheck is the only manufacturer that runs decent UV... At 8-900 a unit. I think ecotec uses 2 emitters per unit on the 420nm rating. Not much investment there compared to the deeper UV ranges.

That's from my research I have read and decifered through. Sorry the post is in organizes, doing this on my phone. I have not bit the bullet to invest in some led components yet to experiment, but its coming.