What corals can I support?

How about building your own lamp? You can build it to the tanks need, and you can save a good amount of money.

 

IF you're a diy type person (or know someone who is with a lot of time on their hands) you could always build one of those newfangled LED type systems. There's some kits out there (some of our sponsors) that allow you to build some serious PAR fixtures for a fraction of the price of a commercial LED system. The energy saved would add up quickly, especially compared to 4x250 MH pendants.

 

I agree with 2 in 10 here

original question may not have been clear
its a 72 inch tank so Drsmooth was looking at 2 x canopies /hoods 36 inches long each with 4 x 39 watt lamps to cover the 6ft (8 tubes)

tanks pretty deep - but for soft corals - this would suffice IME ( having kept many softies under 4 x T10 40 watt tubes)

get quality lamps - ATI , Geisseman, etc

and you could keep - shrooms, Zoas, GSP, Anthellia, Clove polyps, yellow polyps , Leather corals, Toadstool leathers, etc

big thing to decide is
what corals do you want to keep?

If you ultimately want to keep SPS, Clams etc - then the advice your getting about MH lamps is spot on IMO

Steve