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Osram bulbs and metal halides
In my experience, the best metal halide bulb for a planted aquarium is
the German-made 10,000K. These are more expensive than the U.S.-made
bulbs but they have a useful life of 18 months compared to 12 months for
the American bulbs, so the price difference isn't as large as it may
seem. Plant growth is significantly increased over 5500 and 4300K
bulbs, with lower algae growth. The U.S.-made 10,000Ks have
significantly more blue in the output and do not work as well. I also
find these to be the best bulbs for reef tanks.
I would also recommend avoiding the Osram bulbs. These are commonly
referred to as power compact bulbs. They are very bright but every tank
I've used them (plant tanks and reef tanks) on has turned into an algae
farm. This has been true of the 28, 55 and 96 watt bulbs. These are
all 6700K bulbs paired with a 7100K blue. The blues are coated and not
a true actinic. Their smaller bulbs, i.e. 9 and 13 watts are 5000K and
seem to work quite well. Hamilton is now importing 55 watt power
compact fluorescent bulbs from Germany. I just received a shipment of
these but haven't set them up yet. I'm going to put the first set (of
4) on a 60x18x16 planted tank and will let you know how it works out in
a few months.
By the way, I've set up a number of tanks in the last 6 months using
only Phillips daylight bulbs (not the Ultralumes!) and have been
extremely pleased with the results. Plant growth has been excellent and
algae growth has been minimal beyond the initial cycling period.
Mark