I have an aquaillumination vega on my 30g, a reef breeder's photon on my 56g, and two aquaillumination hydras on my 90g. For the price the reef breeder light is quite nice. I can't explain exactly why but the ai lights seem much better visually. More natural. The color, the control, the effects, and most importantly the livestock likes them better.
I seem to have more problems with nuisance algae in the tank with the photon. I bought the vega then the reefbreeder and after plenty of time to experience both, the hydras were an easy choice for my 90.
Ai can also be an economical solution for a couple reasons. For one a hydra or hydra 52 would be enough for your tank if set at the right height with the right lenses. Secondly and my favorite thing about ai lights is that they are completely modular. This means all parts use plug in connections and are user serviceable.
On another good note, I purchased my vega about 3 years ago as a preorder before they were released. Since then they have come out with the hydra, hydra 52, and now the hydra 26. They offer upgrade kits that are all 299 to upgrade any light to the latest technology. So my 700 dollar pair of refurbished hydras could be upgraded to 52s for 600 bucks. That's about the price of the 52s new totalled and I can wait until I can afford the upgrade and get whatever the best light they offer at that time.
As I'm writing I realize this sounds like a sales pitch for ai. I am just a hobbiest and like to share my knowledge. And forget the ecotech bandwagon, if you can't tell I love my ai lights. Joking aside ecotech makes a great product. I would discuss how they compare but I'm not familiar with the newest one. I heard that the new one has 30w white leds. Scary with how easy it is to fry corals with the 5w led chips on the ai lights, but I'm sure they have a super wide lens to compensate.
At a more basic level, any light with 3w leds in the range of 100 watts total power should support the light demands of anything you want to keep at any level in a shallow tank like yours. Reefbreeders only have blue and white but it's the right royal blue to make corals pop. About the same color as the royals on ai. The other colors are more for us than the inhabitants. Yes they help give a more full spectrum but mostly just make everything look WAY better.
I know kessil is also gaining popularity but I know almost nothing about them except they have a very modern look hanging above a tank. You also have the option to go really cheap chinese for 1-200 dollars. Probably not the best long term solution but would get you going much cheaper. Not likely to support sps or last though.
Diy leds are the best budget option. They can be a simple set up or can be even better than the best manufactured fixtures depending on your abilities and budget. Guess you just need to decide what's best for you.
In this hobby it's hard to define what the best choice is because it can be much different from one person to another depending on your goals, constraints, and the rest of your setup. Good luck and I hope you get everything figured out!
I got all the bells and whistles too! Plus great customer service!
