6500K Iwasaki MH

[serpentman]

I am currently running a 250W 6500K Iwasaki MH along with 2 10000K PCs and 2 PC actinics. I am really disappointed as my tank has a very yellowish hue to it. What little I have in the way of corals appear washed out.

Does anyone share this problem? I am considering a switch to 10000K or 14000K. Any advice on which I should choose. My plan is to run LPS and some soft corals

[magie]

hai serpentman ! iam from india and here it is very rare to find 10000k or more kelvin bulbs here, so all these days i was using only 5000k mh along with two actinics each 30w for my 40g tank it was going good but it had that same yellow tint which i hated but some how i requested my lfs to import one 20000kmh so i got it today, it is damn good, it has that blue tint which is making my corals to look colourful , but i would suggest you to go for 14000k mh it will be having the corrert lighting which you are looking for.

[Fiziksgeek]

The Iwaski 6500K is known to be very yellow in color and have incredibly high PAR. On your tank, its probably way more then is needed, especially if all you have in softies and some lps. Running 10K PCs on top of it doesnt help. You need all the actinic you can get to overpower the yellow if the MH...even runningn 4 PC's might not be enough to compensate.

Are your PC's the 96watters? 4 of those would probably be enough. I run 4x96 watt PC (2-10K and 2-actinic) on my 135. I have mushrooms, leathers, and a couple of nice hammers all doing fine.

If you want the MH look, decide on how blue you want to go. A 20K bulb, like an xm20k will be nice and blue, if you dont want so blue, maybe more whitish, try something like a 14k hamilton. With 2x250W 20K's, you could get rid of the PC's. Save a little on the electric bill and bulb replacement.