60 gallon reef lighting

Hi new to 3reef here, and have a few questions,
I have had a 60 gallon FOWLR tank for about a year. I am now working on setting up a sump and starting some corals. I would eventually like to keep sps corals but it will be some time before I get there. My question is how much light will I need. Budget is somewhat constrained I'd say around 250 or so. I have been looking at the aquaticlife t-5 linkable fixtures. Starting with one and adding another. Would this get me up to par to keep sps corals? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Welcome to 3reef. 2 2 bulb fixtures would work great. Start off with 1 fixture and keep LPS and soft corals then start keeping SPS when you get the 2nd fixture. You should be able to keep some lower light needing SPS underneath the fixture in the top half of the tank.

 

I agree that would be a great way to get started. The nice thing is you could even add a third if you find yourself wanting more light in the future.

Michael Rice
Marine Engineers Aquarium Blog
Sent from Tapatalk so excuse my poor English

 

That's great. I am definatly going to go with those fixtures then, and now just need to work on my sump build so I can put a protein skimmer in the mix of things. Thanks for the comments. Looking forward to getting into the coral world.

 

if you dont mind going used there is tons of lights in your price range that will suit you....or if you are good at tinkering you could possibly take a low end light and mod it to work better like this odyssea mod for the older silver box version of the ballasts

Nano-Reef.com Forums > Fix your Odyssea 250W Ballast for less than $15!

however from my understanding the new black ballasts have been fixed on these fixtures

 

Yea that link looks a bit much for me. I am not very handy with electricity and definatly would not feel comfortable with modding a ballast. Appreciate the comment though! I think that I'll be going with the Aquaticlife linkable. Would love Metal Halides, but maybe next tank.

 

lol just putting it out there, however if you do like MHs you could accomplish that for under $250 as well...im assuming that you have a 4' 60 gallon you could probably get 2 used icecap MHs with ballast for between 2 and 250 or maybe less ive seen two 250w icecaps go for about $150 in a tank break down lol keep an eye out in the marketplace here or in your local reef clubs etc

 

You can always look on craigslist for great deals. You may have to buy new bulbs, if you dont you may get algae caused by old bulbs.