lighting vs tank depth for best zoa colors?

[ldempke]

I'm selling off my 75g reef but decided to keep a smaller tank for zoas. maybe a ricordia or two. So I took over my Mom's 30 gallon tall with sunpaq retrofit 2x40 watt PC's. She and I had some of the same zoas, but she didn't get as good of coloring out of them as I did with my actinics and Mh's. so my choices are: in order of preference:

1) minimum cost: keep the current lighting but get a shorter tank(20 gal). so the light is only going down 16" instead of 24". with this I could run the 40wt 50/50 and a 40wt actinic which is 460nm/420nm. would this be adequate to bring out good colors?

2) upgrade to the Sunpaq 2x65 PC's. same setup. 1 50/50 and 1 actinic.
would these be adequate on the 30gallon that is 24" high? or
these lights on a 20 gallon 16" high?

3) I've found a good deal on a PFO 175wt MH. but would need to consider what actinics I could fit in the canopy lid with it. I would keep the 30 G with this. any suggestions on watts of actinics needed with this setup?

thanks in advance!!

 

[Krish]

I had the Coralife 260 watt pc's over my 75gal before I switched to the dual 250W Metal Halides and my few zoo polyps I had seemed to be fine. The coloring only looked different to me between the 2 different lighting setups because of the spectrum, but from what I gathered, they seemed to do just as good under the (4) 65W 50/50 pc bulbs as they did under (2) 250W 20k XM's, but it may be because I didn't have them under the MH's long enough to see a significant difference...

 

[Brenden]

If it were me I would just do a 250w MH with a 20K bulb and ditch the antics.

 

[ldempke]

yes, a 20K metal halide would bring the colors out I want. but the MH cost is so high, and then I have to deal with cooling. I want to keep this system simple. no sump, no chiller. Just pretty zoas. I am really hoping someone might know if these 40 watt PCs would do it or not. I know they don't do it on the 30 gallon tall tank.

The first 2 pics are the same zoas, under actinics, and under 14K MH's. The the other 2 zoa pics are one I'm getting this weekend, I want these colors to stay out too.

 

[MarineTeng]

20k's supposedly yeild the best colors but as you get closer to 10k it's suppose to give better growth, just what i've read, i'm thinking of going inbetween w/o actinics on a 175w, i have 10k's now and it's too yellow for me and i can't really add actinics how i made my stand