How much light?

Hello (long post),

I have 2 150 watt metal halides and 2 36 watt power compacts and 2 normal fluorescents (1 actinic and 1 daylight bulb).

My question is two part, first when the 2 fluorescents are on the tank looks very nice white / bluish.  However once I turn on the MH/PC combination the tank go's very bright however quite yellow.  Is this due to a need of replacement bulbs?  What bulbs should I get?

Right now I don't have any coral just around 180#'s of live rock on a 4" sand bed.  I would like corals however have somewhat limited myself by adding non-reef fish.  At this point I would just like to get the lighting right so my rock will take off growing and convince me to add pretty stuff not mean stuff.

Tank specs are:

90Gallon, Sump (micron sock), Protein Skimmer, Magnum 350 canister with micron filter.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and I appreciate any and all suggestions to my setup.

Dan

 

Hello! I agree with Adam in that lighting is personal preference. If you want it more blue change some lights to actinic, if you want it more white change some to daylight whites. It does sound like you have plenty of light on your 90 gal tank. Hope this helps.

I too had yellow fever as people might have noticed on the tour - do you by chance also have the Iwasaki 6700k bulbs? Any bulbs from HomeDepot would create the same yellow effect or worse

I just got the Aqualine Bushke 10.000k bulbs from www.oceanencounter.com They were on sale! These bulbs are very very white which helps my actinics to blue up the aquarium. I have also heard good things about the color of Ushio bulbs which you can get locally.