Good white/yellow 400 watt bulb

[hdyoung]

I just bought my first metal halide setup, switching over from my 6 bulb tek fixture. It's a 400 watt coralvue electronic ballast with a 12k reeflux bulb.

Its nice, but it's actually a bit too blue to my taste. I actually had the tek fixture with a very white combination of bulbs, and I think I like a more neutral white or even yellowish color better then the "blacklight" look.

Im looking for recommendations for something white/yellow that I might try instead? I don't currently have actinic supplementation.

Options from my browsing the forums:

Coralvue 10k?
EVC 10 k
Iwasaki 6500? Too yellow?

Thanks.

[aninjaatemyshoe]

The Iwasaki 6500K is the best bulb of what you have listed, and in terms of PAR is just about the best bulb available. I don't know if it would be too yellow for you or not as this would highly depend upon your preferences. What I can say is that it is very comparable to sunlight in terms of spectrum. For most people (myself included), that is too yellow. If it was too yellow, you could try T5 supplementation with a couple of blue plus bulbs (T5 actinics are too weak to show any effect with a 400W MH Iwasaki 6500K).