T5 Bulb selection

[jballa15]

Well i'm in the process of ordering the 4 by 24" high output retro Tek II T5 kit from reefgeek for my 29 gallon. I chose to save a few dollars with their basic electronic ballast with the option to upgrade to the icecap 660 later (college student). I am really lost as to which bulbs to choose. I will "mix" several brands with two actinic and two daylight if I don't get a response in time (no worries), but I was wondering if anyone could recomend a brand/Kelvin bulb set up for a mostly softie reef. I would like to venture into a few high light zoanthids and stony corals as well (really just looking for "real growth" in my existing and future medium light corals). Got off track.....any last minute recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, John.:yay:

 

[cameron]

IMO with four bulbs I would not get an actinic oriented bulb as they have very little PAR. I would suggest 1 or 2 daylight bulbs such as the UVL Aquasun and 2 ATI BluePlus. You can substitute 1 or 2 UVL bulbs with the ATI AquaBlue. With four lights that will give you some good PAR and a nice 12k-14k color.

 

[jballa15]

Thanks for the quick replies, I ordered 2 ATI 12000K Aquablue Special, 1 UVL 10000K Aquasun, and 1 ATI Blue Plus. Now off to get some pine for the custom canopy build. I plan to have the lights 3-6" from the water, but do I need to put a splash shield of some sort between them? I will start a new thread for this question. Thanks for the help, John.