4x4x1 tank, how should I light?

[Cobalt]

Thinking about picking up an acrylic "prop tank" from a LFS. Its 4 ft long, 4 ft wide/deep, and 1 foot tall/deep.

I want it take anything I throw in it (softies, lps, sps, clams)

It's going in an unfinished basement, and I don't want to have to scrape the sides. So I want it to be a look-down tank. Any suggestions to lighting? They'd have to be high off the water so you can get your head over the tank and look down in. Can I do it with a single 400 and possibly 4 48" VHOs around the edges? Stonies in the middle, softies on the edges? I just read Eric Hugo put a 1000W several feet over the water level on a 4x4x3 tank and claims its more light that he ever had. Sounds like nearly half the wattage should be fine for one third the depth? Or do I need to bust out some calculus and figure this out for sure... Any thoughts?

[David Grigor]

I would use more than 1 MH. With spiderligth reflectors you should get decent coverage of a 24"w for each MH. The last 6 inches or so on the length will probably be pretty dim but you can put corals accordingly. About the max I would go for a single MH would be a 30L X30W.

Get you a bicycle pulley system so that when people come by to view you can easily raise but when nobody is around put them down to normal height above water.

[Rick O]

Hmmm. Do I know the tank you're referring to? CBA? That should look real nice. Every look down tank I've seen has been awesome. How's it being lit now?

[Cobalt]

Thatt's the one. He actually has two but one is sold already. He has two 400s over both I'm pretty sure.