[apepper]

First some background. I have a 45 gallon tank (36Dx12Wx24H), that initially will house some fish, liverock, snails, etc. In the future I would like to add some soft corals and maybe some lower light hard corals. I will likely upgrade to a different tank before getting into more light demanding corals.

So now the question. I have been trying to decide on lighting, and have been going back and forth many times. I have come down to choosing between a single Coralvue 175W MH retrofit, or a single Coralvue 250W MH retrofit, or a Coralife Aqualight 2-96W PC. If I go with the MH I plan to use a single 10K bulb with no actinic suplement.

Is the 250W MH going to be too much light for this tank based on what I plan to keep? Should I go with MH or PC in this case?

One positive about the aqualight is that it is self contained and I wouldn't necessarily need to build a hood.