Personally I’d go two types of lighting, one to brighten the tank how you want it and one to provide suitable lighting for the plants. The reason i say this way is that getting budget lighting for 3 ft deep may not be easy. Getting decent lighting for 2ft deep some others may be able to advise on which they prefer, but I find led floodlights, good to get light to depths, are cheap to buy and cheap to run 10 or 20 watt, BUT they ain’t what plants want, hence something else to cover the correct spectrum to 2ft deep.
May need to do something instead of or under the sand a little less fine. I’ve done giant val in sand before but would instead look at a thin layer of garden clay covered by an inch of gravel then an inch or so of sand now. Find that works well.
