New to 3reef have a few questions

The two most popular types of lighting that will sustain corals right now are called T5s and Metal Halides. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. MH and T5s are about equal to 18 inches. MH is slightly better to 21 inches and MH outperforms after that. T5s run cooler and have a broader spectrum when it comes to lighting output (I hope I said that right). MH runs hot. You will see Power Compact (PC) out there also. Don't get them. They suck. That is what I run. I am going to change up here. It is going to be my next major purchase.

You should familiarize yourself with how corals survive and sustain themselves. That will explain why you need the correct kind of lighting.

 

OK Got it makes sence so I need alot more LR then.

 

Yup. You may be able to get some through our sponsors on this site. Look around for deals. You may be able to cut that to $3/lb, but still, look to spend money. If you were to start from scratch at $3/lb x 1.5lbs/gal x 125gal you have just spent $562.50. And looking at that......I thought I made a mistake.....I didn't. That is a good price. Believe it or not. You are probably going to spend about $200 on powerheads and quite a bit more on lighting. That set up looks like it is 72" long. Lighting is not something you want to do half-way. A popular and very good lighting system is the Nova Extreme Pro. Let me look up the price.........OK, I'll look into it a little further. I was coming up with at least $750. There has got to be a way to chop off a few hundred dollars. Maybe MH. I will look.

 

Oh, and I know the prices are scary. I have had to put my 90g together piece by piece since May of this year. I did not do it all at once. You can always start out as fish only and slowly upgrade your system until it will handle corals. Don't let the raw numbers scare you away. Just be aware of the costs and eventually you will achieve your goal with smart planning and smart spending.

 

with the MH lighting will I need to get a chiller or should it be fine. I also just looked up the price for lighting HOLY CRAP pricy lights. When you gat a system like the MH lighting do you leave it on all day or just a few hours a day?

 

Considering you are in NM you may want to get a chiller. I use T5's for my lighting and everything seems fine, but I also don't have corals that are very demanding of light. You will have your lights set on a timer and you should supplement your MH lights with actinics I do believe, so you MH will be on maybe 6 hours a day. Please correct me if I am wrong anyone....... like I said I don't run MH. Also one more thing is that you can look at getting a Reef Geek T5 kit that you basically build yourself, that saved me a lot of money. Only about $300 after all is said and done for 4 T5HO's