New to marine tanks, need some help...

[marvinsae]

Originally Posted by BlueAbyss

A marine tank doesn't have to be 18" thick... I run a 10 gallon planted reef. The live rock goes into the display tank with the sand, the sump is for things like the heater, protein skimmer etc. You want ~10x turnover or lower through the sump (which for a 65 gallon tank, if that's what you decide you want, is around 650 gph or lower). Someone mentioned a filter sock, it goes over the inlet to the sump (where the water from the overflow enters the sump). You can boost your circulation in the display tank with powerheads, as you mentioned... choose something with a nice wide flow, you'll likely want a couple (or more) of them to get some nice turbulent currents flowing around the rock. Skimmers should be rated for TOTAL tank volume, so for a 65 gallon DT and a 40 gallon sump you would want a skimmer rated for 100 gallons or higher.

Now, as far as lighting, don't go by watts per gallon (it's terribly inaccurate). Well, actually I suppose as long as you have more than 4 T5HO bulbs or over a 250W metal halide, you can certainly use watts per gallon, I take that back. It's still going to have more to do with the depth of the water and the lamps you are using, and total distance from the lamps though... what are you planning on keeping? More depends on your plans as to what sort of livestock you will be keeping... are you going for an SPS dominated theme? FOWLR? Different organisms have different needs and the tank should be set-up accordingly.

i wanna have a lot of coral so im guessin an sps dominated theme with plenty of fish also. the guy at my lfs said that mushroom corals and zoanths should be able to grow no problem however i would need MH for other corals and clams?