Need Help With Lighting Dilemma

My setup: 60 gallon tank with built in overflow, custom built canopy with only 9" inside to retrofit lights. I am now running 2-250 watt ice cap ballast with spiderlight reflectors and 20,000k bulbs. The only problem I was worried about at 8 watts per gallon was over heating but I took a chance. Now my tank stays at 82 degrees, over run with algae despite proper maintenance, ETSS Evolution protein skimmer, Two Little Fishies Phosban Reactor with Phosban, and adjusting me photoperiods. In the end my tank has almost crashed due to lack of lighting and I need to make some changes. So here starts the debate, I orginally wanted to retrofit the MH I have with 2 T5's so I would only be running the MH 4 hrs of the day and let the T5's run the rest of the day, unfortunatley I only have 9" to work with under my canopy. Next idea was an all in one fixture with MH & T5's but the ice cap reef illuminations seem to just be made in china with a brand name sticker slapped on them.(no harm intended, just research thus far). Not that I'm stuck on icecap Its just hard to drop $1000.00 without seeeing a fixture, I open to any GOOD brand. Then I decided to maybe just go T5 all the way and the Aquatic Life, or the Tek 6x54 seems to be the most popular, unfortunatley Tek does not come with lunar lights, so I am still a beginner in this field with only 6 years under my belt and I am looking to the professionals for help. Any advice or crticism is welcome. Thanks for the help in advance!

 

What is your water source? Do you use tap? Also, what type(s) of food do you feed, how often, and how do you prepare it?

I'm just guessing it's not your lighting that's causing the algae issue.

 

I would advise going with T5HO due to less heat being introduced to the tank and greater selection of bulbs to customize your apparent color. You would be using less energy to get the same output also. You can always buy a LED string to use as moonlights.

 

Agrees!

Personally I would do a DIY LED lighting system… you could easily do one for under $500.00 total.
www.rapidled.com

 

Evolved, you are right it is a combination of me running the lights to long, my temp being to high, and not doing frequent enough water changes. I feed twice a day, small amounts of New life Spectrum pellet food, & Julian sprung sea veggies on a clip but only twice a week for my tangs. My water is filtered with Aquarium Pharm. Tap water filter. I just recently give up on the algae battle because of the fact I couldn't run the halides less because it was killing my coral. Halides in my opinion for coral are great, but I think I bought more than I needed since I'm not running a chiller in my tank so I am hurting myself more than helping. Thanks again for the help!

 

Another option which I have looked over for fear of expense is a chiller. Would I be better to keep my current retrofit and just upgrade to a chiller to help maintain my temp and maybe somehow squeeze 2 t5's into the mix for the dawn & dusk affect?