Calling all experienced reefers

[adittam]

They will be fine, imo.
I run a 250 watt 14k MH on my 36x24x12 frag system.
You can just adjust the height for your system.

Unfortunately, I can't adjust the height for my system, the highest I would be able to hang the lights would be about 8" over the water level.

 

[X-37B]

Unfortunately, I can't adjust the height for my system, the highest I would be able to hang the lights would be about 8" over the water level.

Then I would look at T5's.
This is my 120 with 8T5's 4" off the surface. I ran for 1 year before halides with great results.

 

[vetteguy53081]

5wt diodes not intense at all

 

[MONTANTK]

For me Kelvin is nothing but a preference in color temperature. 10k is more yellow whereas 20k is a crisp white/blue look and 14k is a combo of both. In Halides we always used 20k or 14k. In T5s I usually had two 10k or 7.5k bulbs mixed with bluer bulbs. Using Kelvin now is not really relevant if you’re using LEDs. FWIW I would say color temperature wise I keep my lights around 20k