Help choosing lighting!

Hey guys so I need help. Should I go t5 halide or led? Setting up a 75tank gal reef. Corals. Inverts. Fish. All the goos stuff. Don't want to be limited by my light. So is led the way to go? I know it will be less expensive to run so that's a big factor. Can someone recommend me a good led? What are the prices for the new leds running? Pros? Cons?

 

Some good LED units are the Ecotech Radion and the Aqua Illuminations SOL or VEGA,and of course DIY. Just depends on what you are wanting out of the fixture and your budget. Pretty big difference between the AI and Radion.

 

There are other LED units out there, i just named the three i prefer. I have the AI SOL and I really like it, the price isnt too terrible either.

 

Ive been looking and reading on them myself and there is 2 pretty popular fixtures

Ecotech Radion

Aqua Illumination Sol

Everybody seems to love them both and really price is a factor and what colors.
In a nutshell the Radion will do more colors as far as i believe it has like red green and your normal blue and white correct me if im wrong. Where AI SOL will do your blues and white, for your 75g you would probably need 3 of either and price is around $750 for Radion and $399 for Sol a piece.

Also you could go with a few other options such as Par Led bulbs, and some other companies LED fixtures but those 2 seem to be the most popular for reef and either one would allow you to keep anything under them.

 

Also I will be ordering 2 AI SOL blues for my tank friday just seems best for me money and all

 

You would probably want 3 Sols or 2 Radions.

 

well looks like leds are way out of my price range. Not looking to spend 400$ on a fixture when i would need 4 of them for the tank! jeeze.

So maybe halide would be a better bet. Or a 6 bulb t5 fixture. Can find used systems on craigslist for a decent price. If i went t5 everything i see says upgrade the bulbs in the fixture. What are the good bulbs people are talking about?

 

if you cant spend more than 400 dollars you will be limited by your light, no really good light fixture that can grow anything over a 75 gallon tank will be under 400 dollars.

but you could check craigslist, but its always a little risky buying expensive lighting off of there.

 

Jeeze. So should i just do a fowlr tank for now? And keep my corals in my edge tank that has 2 orphek pr-3 leds?

 

here are some options for you, both would work great

- you could do a fowlr while you save up enough money to buy a good fixture to grow whatever you want, this way you could get the light sooner, but go quite a while without any corals.

-you could buy a less powerful fixture, maybe a 2 bulb t5 fixture to grow some softies and lps, then when you get enough money you could upgrade your lighting to grow whatever you like. spending the money on this light would mean it would be a lot longer until you got a much more powerful light but you would also be able to house corals the whole time.

just my 2 cents.