Lighting How high and placement

[Acronuts]

My 125 g reef tank has a hood that measures appr. 10 inches.
Currently my light setup is:
3 175 14k Coral vue bulbs are about 6 inches from the water. The reflectors are standard but are not the fancy ones that are out now.The bulbs all face length wise toward the right. Here are the questions that keep bothering me and I need help with.
1. Is this hood too low for these lights?
2. Should I be worried that the bulbs being so close to the water cause harm to the corals?
3. Should I change the direction of the bulbs and place them from back to front? Will this produce less shadowed areas? Or will my current setup be fine?
Finally I am considering adding wood to make the hood stand higher. Adding an additional 4 inches. ( 2 x 4 x 24 ). Since I am getting 4 more inches I plan to add 3 better, more advanced reflectors.

4. Will adding the extra height improve overall lighting? Or will this make the animals that are on the lower parts of the reef strave to get the beneficial light?
5. Will the lengthwise or widthwise placement of the bulbs matter?
6. Do I really need to spend the money on fancy reflectors?

Thanks guys in advance for your opinions and advice,
Juan

 

[kgross]

Adding good reflectors will improve the overall lighting. If you don't go to better reflectors it will decrease the light getting into the tank.

Bulb orientation depends on the reflector. With good reflectors it does not matter, with the spider style reflectors, have the bulbs face front to back normally gives a better spread into the tank.

Do you need to spend the money on good reflectors, no you do not, but the better reflectors can put as much as 50% more light into the tank over no/poor reflector

Here is an old article on reflectors.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/mar2003/feature.htm

 

[jasmine.rave]

For our LED aquarium lamp, my suggestion is like below pic. As for bulb is also depends on beam angle. Just for
you reference!