gift possibly gone wrong

I'm extremely new to salt water and I thank everyone who is a part of this site as it has been nothing but helpful. It's good to see there are people out there willing to speak about their passion. If I may I have a question in regards to lighting that's slightly unique. A few weeks ago my girlfriend bought me a birthday present. She'd discovered that one of the local salt water stores was retiring and new that lights were something I needed for my tank. So she walked in and picked up a reef capable marineland led for 150$. The light itself is 48" but can extend out to 60" has 46 white 1 watt leds and 8 blue 1 watt leds. It has a par of 130 and a lux of 12700 at 12" and a par of 64 lux of 5870 at 24" and produces 3340 lumens. My question is will this support a 55 gal soft reef tank, and if not, is it possible to couple it with another light? She bought it for me as a birthday gift, and if I can't use it I can explain that, but if it is possible to use it I would like too. Since this is my first tank I'm not planning on keeping anything too difficult, but in the grand scheme of things I would like to work my way up to some LPS as I think ones like the bubble coral are absolutely fascinating, but as far as I've read, do require a good amount of light. I know that I should build this tank to the specifications of my ultimate goal and I have read that these lights seem to have some issues and I want to get this right the first time so I don't spend another couple of grand trying to do it right the second time. I've done a lot of research into lighting and it seems to be one of the most important parts to keeping a reef tank and any help that could be provided would be more then appreciated. Finally forgive me if this has been asked before I searched, but didn't find anything specific to my situation. Also if I've posted this in the wrong thread just let me know. Thanks again.

 

I think you should be good for softies and LPS such a bubble coral. Great birthday gift.

 

thank you that puts a big load off of my mind! I know she tried hard to find me something that would help me out and looks like she really succeeded.

 

I also agree with jason sound like a nice gf lol

 

It should work for softies. Just be mindful of placement.

If you ever need more light down the line, could always add some DIY LEDs alongside the marine land fixture.

Awesome that she just straight up bought you lights. I wouldn't want to not use a gift either.

 

Agree; softies are fine. Lower light LPS should be fine as well.

Higher light LPS and pretty much all SPS will not be fine.

 

Thank you very much everyone for you help in this. We really appreciate it. Thanks to all of you I'm one step closer to getting this set up and under way!

 

will save you $$$ on electric and cooling costs no matter what level they are. Depending on the type they could harbor all sorts of corals, at the very least softies, fish, leathers and potentially others. Fish don't care.

 

Welcome