265 gallon salt water fish only lighting/substrate

reef-wannabe · Jul 21, 2013

Hey! I've got a 265 gallon tank (7' long x 30" tall x 24" front to back). It was originally going to be a reef tank at my office in our Technology Center, however the CEO has said no to reef right away because of the initial start up cost. He wanted to price out fresh water, but now he wants to know the cost of salt water fish only. Now, I'm trying to price out how much it will cost for that. The last two things I need are lighting and gravel.

Firstm I don't want to spend lots of money on the lighting now because it's just fish, and I want to save it for LED's later. The tank has two braces across the top, dividing it into 3 sections. Each section is 27" long. (see picture)

I'm wondering, what would be a good light to either hang or that could span the 27" and fit nicely? Also, what would light up the tank enough to give the fish bright beautiful colors? I've been reading about some marineland double bright LED's, however lots of reviews say they aren't super bright. What would you suggest?

Secondly, I don't know how much sand/substrate to quote that we need for this big of a tank. I think I want sand, but how much will cover 1-1.5 inch deep?

Ron Reefman · Jul 22, 2013

This is in a technology center and you can't calculate how much sand you need? 84" x 24" x 1.5" = 3024 cu in divided by 1728 (cu in for a cu ft) = 1.75 cu ft. The bag at the store will tell you how much sand is in it by cu ft or cu in.

As for the light, over a FOWLR and you want to save money, get three 2' fluorescent shop light fixtures and pick your bulb colors off the rack at Lowes. They have a variety of colors from warm white to cool white. Or pay 3-4 times as much and get two 3' t5 fixtures from any LFS. There are a lot of other more expensive options, but why spend the money when you think you'll want to upgrade in the future anyway?

reef-wannabe · Jul 22, 2013

here's what I'm looking at, which doesn't tell how many cubic feet it covers. I'm not sure how much weight of this sand will equal a cubic foot.

CaribSea Dry Aragonite Special Grade Reef Sand