lighting a 65 gallon?

[6Speed]

I will be picking up a 65 gallon tank from a friend, and I need some advice on lighting it. I was told that since the 65g is so deep, it will be harder to light than a 55g. I'm planning on building my own light setup to save as much money as possible, but at the same time I don't want to skimp on parts. What would be a really nice lighting setup for a tall tank like this?

[greenmaji]

WELCOME TO AA!!
Wichever lighing you chouse youll need ballasts.. so.. here is a link..
http://www.prolighting.com/ballasts.html

You can go with CF, MH, or ODNO (there isnt alot of info. out there about ODNO but you can do a search on the board here ive posted quite a bit about it..)

[seaham358]

What is odno???
How much money are you planning on spending? More important what type of corals?
VHO and PC lights are nice and easy to set up.
If you planning on soft corals the the 2 above will do fine if you want hard then you need to look at MH.

[6Speed]

I'm not sure about how much. I would prefer not to spend 600 dollars, though.

I love the way MH makes the shimmery look on the bottom of the tank. I'm not sure if I will be keeping hard corals. I just want a very colorful tank. My main concern was simply what kind of lighting would I need to penetrate the deepest parts of the tank. I don't want to just have corals thriving at the top and middle and none able to live near teh bottom...

[seaham358]

most soft corals will do well at low levels of the tank. 4 vho bulbs would do fine on that tank. You need to fugure out what type of corals you want to keep, this way in a month or 2 your not upgrading your lights again because you want to keep different corals.
vho and pc will work well on a 65 gal tank for most lps and soft corals, but if you like shimmer lines then MH is the way to go. They will cost more then most vho and pc lights.

[6Speed]

Hmm, well, could I do maybe 1 MH, and 2 or 3 PC or VHO's? How expensive would that be? Would that even work, or would it be a waste of money?

[seaham358]

Its possible, most run the MH with 2 or more vho actinic bulbs for the blue color. Cost all depends on which brand you buy. With Mh may need 2 to get full coverage of the tank. Again it all depends on what your looking for