Planning a 10 gallon softie tank

[labnjab]

We are in the planning stages of setting up a low maintenance softie tank. Our 75 gallon has pretty much become a sps/lps tanks so were trying to get rid of all softies except zoas. Instead of selling them all, we've decided to make a softie tank. Its going to be a 10 gallon with 10 lbs live rock, 20'bs or so aragonite sand, a few MJ1200's for flow, small heater, no skimmer, and full of softies. We may or may not put 1 small fish in it. If we do it will be just a small yellow clown goby or something similar.

So far we have everything but the live rock and light. We will be picking up the rock in a few days at only $3 a lb from a friend who is breaking down his large 4 tank, 500 gallon system. The goal is for the tank to be an overgrown softie tank, lol. Kenya tree, pally's, mushrooms, green star polyps, pretty much colorful, low light soft coral.

My question is what would be a good budget light? I'm thinking something homemade or a cheap t-5 fixture. I don't want to break the bank and don't want to spend more then $100-$150 on the whole tank and and $30 is taken up by the rock (remember all we have left to buy is the light)

Thank your for your input and let me know what you think about the tank.

[blesser13]

Im using a T5 coralife (28 watts) wich cost me 60$ , i supose they have for 10 gallons.

[MCHRKiller]

http://www.catalinaaquarium.com/product_info.php?cPath=71_74&products_id=1194

In a 20" tank PCs are probably going to offer the most options, Id probably just get that fixture. Softies dont seem to mind PCs.

[labnjab]

Thank you for the suggestions thumbs2: Right now a few members of our local reef club has proposed a few options. One person has offered a used 2 bulb 24 inch coralife t-5 fixture, which he said to make an offer.

We may do a diy LED project for the tank too. A guy on my local reef club built a led set-up for a 5 gallon reef for under $35 and it grows acros just as good as our halides do in our 75 gallon so I would think it wouldn't cost much more to do a 10 gallon. I know it will be much more light then we need for a softie tank, but I've been thinking that we may also use the 10 gallon to hold frags from our 75 gallon. On the downside it may make us tempted to stock it with sps instead of softies, defeating the purpose of a low maintenance tank, lol

For now I'm going to price out making an led set-up and go from there. If we decided against it, what should we offer the guy with the t-5's? We don't have to decide on lighting now. I'll probably set up the tank soon and decided on lighting once it cycles