Lighting for 55 gallon

[Todd_elb]

I need a little help with lighting my 55 gallon tank. If anyone has any suggestions on lights please feel free to comment. I am definitely going to have coral in my tank as well as fish. I am waiting to get coral until I figure out which lights to get. I know there are many different factors when choosing lights for a reef tank and being that I am new to hobby would love all the input I can receive.

 

[Peach02]

Okay so first of all it’s best to simplify this process imo into a series of questions
1. What type of coral do you want to grow (this will effect your par requirements)
2. Led or T5 (T5 tends to get better growth but is more expensive to run and maintain)
3. Budget (lights can go from fifty bucks to thousands)
4. Select a light(s) based on prior criteria

Eg for my next tank
1. I want to grow mainly sps with some softies and lps so I’ll need high par
2. I chose led to cut down on matinance and running costs
3. I chose to aim for less than 1500 aud max on all lights combined (it’s a 5 foot tank)
4. I wanted a reliable and well known brand so I decided on AI hydra 26’s as they where cheaper than the 52’s and radions but could still grow sps

 

[Snoopy 67]

Take a look @ Ocean revive T-247
Won't break the bank & WILL grow corals.

 

[Bpb]

Either get a pair of viparspectra, or a 4 bulb sunblaze fixture off eBay/amazon. It’s an imperfect argument to say t5’s are more expensive. You can easily stretch your bulb changes to 18-24 months if you’re able to raise/lower the fixture and measure par. $100 every 1.5-2 years should be considered basically negligible in this hobby. You can go spend $800-1000 on lighting if you want but if you’re a beginner, all those control options are going to cause more problems then they fix. I’m fairly biased though.

 

[Reesj]

OR you can Spend $20-30 and build you own LED fixer like I did. (Or even 2 for that matter for that cash)