What Color Should I Go With

[ANGRY JOHN]

I Am Planing To Set Up A 40 Gallon Reef Tank Based On A Tonga Reef Lagoon Which Will Be In A 40 Gallon Breeder Tank. I Have Selected A Breeder Tank Because It Is Wide And Long But Not Very Deep Which Gives Me A Lot Of Realistate And Surface For Gas Exchange Etc. Eventualy I Will Have Some Mushrooms And A Few Clams And Almost No Fish With The Exception Of A Cleaner Wrase And Mabe A Tang Or Lawn Mower Bleny For Kicks. Also I Plan To Have A Deep Sand Bed 4-5". This Will Leave The Deepest Secion Of My Tank At Less Than A Foot. My Plan Is To Run A 250 Hqi Mh Pendant That I Already Have From A Previous Setup. I Actualy Have Three But I Feel That Would Realy Be Overkill. So The Question I Have Is What Kelvin Lamp And Manufacture Would You Recomend. I Was Thinking A Aqualine 10k But They Recomend Also Having A03. I Also Think This Would Be A Waste And I Would Just Run A 20k Bulb.

[Ninong]

I have experience running both the AB-10000 and the Ushio/BLV 10,000K HQI DE lamps. I like them both. Both of those would give you much more PAR than a comparable 20,000K lamp but in your particular situation, I think you may want to make your decision based on appearance.

Even though the 20,000K would have much less PAR, it would be more than adequate for your particular setup, especially considering your very shallow water column.

[sihaya]

I like the low-K bulbs for a two main reasons...

1. Natural sunlight is actually less than 6,000k
2. Though the low-K bulbs look yellow (and so some would say uglier), blue light is the hardest for the human eye to see. So the lower-K bulbs produce more eye-friendly light. I believe this makes for a clearer, sharper view of the tank.

The lower K bulbs are pretty unaesthetic though... so I just use a modest actinic strip light just to pretty things up a little.

[charlie]

Personally, I am a fan of the bluer end of the spectrum. I believe Coralvue makes a 14k bulb that is really nice. I have a couple on my 80 gallon softie tank. I do run vho actinic supplementation also tho.
Maybe Ninong has hit it on the head with a 20k bulb, that way you could probably get away without any actinic supplementation.