I used a shop light over mine along with my coralife FW aqualite and my plants grew pretty good. The shop lights are fine, but keep in mine that they don't come with a good reflector. Basically you’re going to lose quite a bit of light because its not focused into your tank. However using two sets of the shop light over your 55gal is better than nothing. Just upgrade whenever you get the chance. Till then you may look at creating your own reflector using mylar or something (just do not use aluminum).
Economical Lighting
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Yup, white is the next best thing from a mirror finish. Try hitting up Home Depot or Walmart if you can. They have a cheaper version that's only about $8 each. You can also get (2) 6700k T8 at home depot for $7. Good luck. (I'm in the same shoes as you 
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I've done a lot of reading about this and it seems that aquarium lights are so expensive because they are labeled "aquarium lights" or "grow lights". That's about it. It's a convenience thing ~ rather than do the research to learn about kelvin ratings and such, the general public wants a no-brainer. So sellers give it to 'em and charge 'em for it. It's just like rubber liner in ponds ~ Goodyear makes roofing liner and pond liner both. When they switch the production line from making roofing liner to making pond liner, they simply stop the production line, switch out the stamps in the machines that label the liner "Roofing" to "Pond - Fish safe" and crank it back up. The only other thing they change is the stamps at the end of the line that say "20cents/sq. ft." to "$1.99/sq. ft." Seriously.
When you get your money saved up, you might want to look into AH Supply's lighting kits. I've read extensively on this forum and other webpages about lighting, and AH Supply seems to have the best lighting for the best price. Sure you can get cheaper lights, as you are doing with the shop lights (and as I'm doing at the moment with compact spiral bulbs and those cheapo silver cone-shaped reflectors from Lowe's), but both of our solutions aren't very efficient at getting light in the tank. There's a LOT of spillover into the room from my system, plus lots of restrike (light hitting the bulb again) and lots of light lost due to inefficient reflection (the silver things I'm using aren't that great of reflectors). I have one tank that has the lights mounted in regular receptacles against the white painted bottom of the shelf above ~ still not the most efficient. I'm having to use more watts because of these problems. Once I get AH Supply's kits, I can go from using 45 or 60 watts via my current setup to 36 using one of their setups including their awesome reflectors.
Oh, yeah ~ welcome to the forum! You're going to love it here. :biggrin:
It's just like rubber liner in ponds ~ Goodyear makes roofing liner and pond liner both. When they switch the production line from making roofing liner to making pond liner, they simply stop the production line, switch out the stamps in the machines that label the liner "Roofing" to "Pond - Fish safe" and crank it back up. The only other thing they change is the stamps at the end of the line that say "20cents/sq. ft." to "$1.99/sq. ft." Seriously. When you get your money saved up, you might want to look into AH Supply's lighting kits. I've read extensively on this forum and other webpages about lighting, and AH Supply seems to have the best lighting for the best price. Sure you can get cheaper lights, as you are doing with the shop lights (and as I'm doing at the moment with compact spiral bulbs and those cheapo silver cone-shaped reflectors from Lowe's), but both of our solutions aren't very efficient at getting light in the tank. There's a LOT of spillover into the room from my system, plus lots of restrike (light hitting the bulb again) and lots of light lost due to inefficient reflection (the silver things I'm using aren't that great of reflectors). I have one tank that has the lights mounted in regular receptacles against the white painted bottom of the shelf above ~ still not the most efficient. I'm having to use more watts because of these problems. Once I get AH Supply's kits, I can go from using 45 or 60 watts via my current setup to 36 using one of their setups including their awesome reflectors.
Oh, yeah ~ welcome to the forum! You're going to love it here. :biggrin:
Ive been looking at AH supply and this looks like it would be the way to go. I dont, however, have any electrical experience whatsoever (though I do consider myself a fast learner). Will this be a problem or are these thing pretty easy to set up?I've done a lot of reading about this and it seems that aquarium lights are so expensive because they are labeled "aquarium lights" or "grow lights". That's about it. It's a convenience thing ~ rather than do the research to learn about kelvin ratings and such, the general public wants a no-brainer. So sellers give it to 'em and charge 'em for it.
When you get your money saved up, you might want to look into AH Supply's lighting kits. I've read extensively on this forum and other webpages about lighting, and AH Supply seems to have the best lighting for the best price. Sure you can get cheaper lights, as you are doing with the shop lights (and as I'm doing at the moment with compact spiral bulbs and those cheapo silver cone-shaped reflectors from Lowe's), but both of our solutions aren't very efficient at getting light in the tank. There's a LOT of spillover into the room from my system, plus lots of restrike (light hitting the bulb again) and lots of light lost due to inefficient reflection (the silver things I'm using aren't that great of reflectors). I have one tank that has the lights mounted in regular receptacles against the white painted bottom of the shelf above ~ still not the most efficient. I'm having to use more watts because of these problems. Once I get AH Supply's kits, I can go from using 45 or 60 watts via my current setup to 36 using one of their setups including their awesome reflectors.
Oh, yeah ~ welcome to the forum! You're going to love it here. :biggrin:
Also how difficult is it to build a case to hold the lights. Anyone have any good/cheap suggestion on how to do this?
Thanks
hello, can you pass on all the info you get on lighting to me im in the same boat and at the failing end of the spectrum , and building a hood shouldnt bee too difficult any high school level text book on woodworking will contain enough information to give guidance on how to build somthing suitable with modest tools failing that, use a load of duct tape and use the line "funtion over form"
, and building a hood shouldnt bee too difficult any high school level text book on woodworking will contain enough information to give guidance on how to build somthing suitable with modest tools failing that, use a load of duct tape and use the line "funtion over form" 
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