90 gallon tank lighting

[physcoben]

hello i'm the owner of a 90 gallon reef tank, and i would like to begin making it more reef like with such things as carpet anemones, and live corals. my problem is that i have a nice lighting strip but its only 40 watts, now i bought two coral sea bulbs for it they are 48 inches long and 1.5 inches in diameter, one is 10,000k, and the other is atinic 03/magnetic(its light is blue). now i talked to my fish guy and he said that cus my tank is 2.5 ft deep, i would have to get like a 800-3000 dollar light set up. Are there any other options that i can do like do they make 48 inch by 1.5 inch lights with more wattage, or can i add like a level higher up in my tank supported by live rock in order to add the cool stuff, what can i do?????????? any do it yourself cheaper ideas????????? i'm a college student and kind of short on cash!!!

 

[sonny]

Look into the icecap VHO ballast. It will run up to four 48" tubes that are "very high output." The 48" VHO lamps are 110 watts each rather than 40. The ballast will run you about $175, and the lamps will be about $20-25 each. They need to be replaced annually. The other option is metal halide. The cost the LFS guy quoted is very high. If you can wire it yourself, you could have metal halide lighing for less than $200. There are tons of posts on lighting on this board. Generally, you need one metal halide (MH) lamp for every two feet of tank. There are different wattages for MH: 150 (not used that much), 175 (the most popular), 250 (need for higher light animals), and 400 (very intense, more for deeper tanks with high light needs). There are also many different lamps to choose from. They are rated for the color temperature they emit. You need at least 5500 degrees Kelvin (k) for a reef. They are available in higher colors: 6500 k (looks more like sunlight, but more yellow), 10,000 k (crisp white looking light), and higher numbers like 12,000, 14,000, and 20,000 k (bluer with higher numbers). With MH, heat is a big problem, as it warms the water. Some tanks even need a chiller to keep it from getting too hot. Hope this helps...
Sonny