Hi. I am new to this forum and to marine aquarium. I am just about to start the hobby. I looked at the Boyu TL 550 today. Is this a good start. I want to end with coral and a couple of fish as my experiance build.
Firstly welcome Kalvyn..hope you enjoy the forum. To your question there is no easy answer as a lot depends on what you would like to achieve in the long run, setting up a reef ecosystem is a long term project anyway so keep the end goal in mind.
As for "plug and play systems", I personally have never been a fan due to the limitations of their design , having said that however loads of guys are quite happy with them , taken that they do require more effort and sometimes more expense to maintain.
On the other hand , a well designed custom build , can be done with the end goal in mind, leaving options to add equipment later etc etc.
IMHO you can build a better system from scratch than buying any "plug and play " systems. But thats me...
why not look at the aquaria tanks? The one has T5 lighting and thats pretty cool so you can upgrade the tubes