Lighting Help

[d_wilson4]

I have done several searches and am still at a loss. Can anyone offer a suggestion as to which lighting solution would be best? It is for a 55 gallon tank that is currently fish only. But I will be moving the tank from it current stand into its own closet and am thinking about adding corals and a refugium that will share this light as well hopefully. I have narrowed it down to the following 3 choices:
1. HQI/T5 Outer Orbit
1072 48" 2x150 watt 2x54w 2x54w 9/9 48" x 15" x 4.25" 529
2. HQI/T5 Outer Orbit
1077 48" 2x250 watt 2x54w 2x54w 9/9 48" x 15" x 4.25" 729
3. Nova Extreme
1123 48" 4x54watt 4x54watt 4 Yes Yes 48" x 14" x 2.5" 432 3.72
Size should not be to much of an issue as I can hang them from the ceiling in this new room. Heat I do not think would be to bad because the room has 8 foot ceilings and the room is roughly 7 foot by 3 foot. Any suggestions or thought would be greatly appreciated.

 

[scsinet]

Either #1 or #3 would probably be a good choice. Honestly the second option looks like overkill.
I would not count on your fuge "sharing" light off the main tank. Halides are optimal when placed every 24", so a 2 halide fixture over a 48" 55g tank would be about right.
Lighting the fuge with your main light is not advisable anyway. Most folks run their fuge lights 24x7, or on opposite timers, having the fuge on when the main tank is off, in order to stablize water quality. I personally run my fuge 24x7. Fuge lighting need not be elaborate. I use a cheapo spring-clamp worklight I got at the Depot for about $7, along with a 23w daylight scre-w in compact fluorescent floodlight that was about $9.
Heat is gonna be a problem, sorry to say. You need to think about it this way... The best halide lamps are somewhere around 25% efficient, and T5s are similar. What a halide system doesn't give off as light it gives off as heat. So if you are using (2) 150w halides and (2) 54w lights, that's 408w of light, or roughly 306 watts of heat.
Imagine a 300w heater sitting in that closed room all day long. It's going to be hot. I'm not even counting all of the heat from your pumps, powerheads, etc. It all adds up.
What I'd do is plan to add some ventilation. A couple of furnace vents just installed in some holes in the wall (near the ceiling) would help a lot, as would replacing the closet door with one that has louvers on it. Nothing serious... just adding some air circulation would make a big difference.

 

[scsinet]

By the way, as far as heat... also think humidity. Closing a tank in a room like that breeds mold...

 

[d_wilson4]

The room does have a vent at the bottom and I have also already thought about putting another one at the top with a fan attached to it. Then during the summer months blowing the air out into the main family room. Sorry I was not to clear on the set up but the front of the tank will be flush mounted with the family room wall. We also used sheetrock for most of the new walls that were put up. Thank you for your thoughts.