Thinking about lighting.

[Skooner Jr.]

Hello,

I am starting to think about the lighting for my *NEW* reef tank. This will be my 1st Saltwater tank ever. So I am a newbie at this.

I am thinking of a 60 x 18 x 24in tank. I was leaning towards the MH Coralife lights at J&L (because they aren't to expensive) but they don't have them in 60's and if I get the 36's and 24's it's more expensive than the 72's. So that leaves me with the PFO or Hamilton's. It looks like I can save some money if I go with the retrofit lights and build my own canopy.

Should I go with 175w or 250's? @ 10000k.

I am open to any suggestions so fire away. I'm looking for good lights that I won't be upgrading anytime soon.

[Invigor]

I have a tank similar sized to yours, it's 60x20x20. I made my own canopy out of MDF. I sealed it with about 7 coats of lacquer. I drilled in two 120mm fans for cooling and I am (currently) only running 220w VHO 10000k and 80w actinics and it's fairly decent. I'm in the middle of upgrading to 2x250w MHs. If you're handy with the saw I'd recommend building your own canopy...much much cheaper. If you were to buy my setup from hamilton or PFO it would cost around $1100. some quick math...I've put about $700 into mine, which has HQI ballasts ($80 up from normal ballasts) which will make up for itself when I buy proper MH reflectors...for now I use flat white alkyd enamel. The only thing I don't like about my canopy is it's darn heavy with the MDF..but it's super solid. You could easily get away with a simple canopy made with 1x2s and some pine plywood and just put deck sealant on it..or something. DIY is the way to go.

My 2x250w HQI setup will never be upgraded again on this tank. If you'd like to come see it for ideas, send a PM my way and I'll lead you to my house for show and tell. Stasher has an almost identical setup as mine too, although his woodworking is far superior to mine.

[Stasher]

Don't worry about putting a 48" fixture on your tank. This setup would only leave about 6" of space on either side of your hood and would cause no major lighting concerns. Just put lower light corals near the outer edges and high demand in the center. You don't need to cram every inch up top :)