Need more information. What types of corals do you prefer. I know you said mixed, but at the end of the day you’ll have favorites. What kind of aesthetic do you like? Are you a windex tank fan? Where it’s all blue all the time. Do you like the look of a reef in 5 feet of water on a sunny day? Do you like a lot of blue with a hair of white in there? Try to find some examples and post them. Issue with coral color is lighting is only part of the equation and with t5ho its best to shoot for an overall ambience, rather than what will make your corals look differently.
When I ran t5ho I settled on
3-giesemann tropic
1 ati purple+
1 ati true actinic
3 ati blue+
I really like the 10k shallow water look. It’s bright and real looking. Fish colors are amazing and you start getting more contrast development in sps corals over time. But that is an old fashioned look. Most new hobbyists think that Radium metal halides are “yellow” and they’re borderline too blue for my taste. So...tell us more about what kind of look you prefer and we will all chime in with a million bulb combo recommend recs.
Otherwise everyone will start recommending theirs saying simply their combo and “this one looks awesome I love it” completely ignoring your own preference. I hate the look of many of these (6-7 blue+, with 1-2 coral+) recommendations as they look like a tank full of windex and are kind of dull and dark looking. Fish colors are muted, and many sps kind of fade away in color.
