James' 44 gallon first Salt Water tank

[sewerman45]

I am new to salt water and to this forum. I've heard you are a great group though and I thought I'd start a journal here.

After tearing down my larger planted tank when I moved I have had a hard time deciding what to do next. I had planned on setting it up as a high tech planted tank again but I have a smaller one at my office now and wanted a new challenge.

My goal is to set up a salt water tank that is somewhat in the ADA style of being very minimalistic and clean looking. I want there to be very little visible and make it as neat as possible. I have a 44 gallon starphire tank that I am going to use for this as I wanted it to be shallower than the 57 gallon tank I was using before.

Here is what it looks like right now.



Cat for scale:



I am not sure how I am going to set it up underneath as the stand has a 2x3 that runs down the middle. I will need to either take it out and shore up the stand or build a platform? Take a look and let me know if you have any ideas.




I am going to start with drilling the tank and doing most of the plumbing. I could have gotten all the parts separately but I figured for my first time I'd try to keep it simple. I ordered an overflow and return kit from glass-holes.com and am so far very happy with it. I think I have pretty much everything I need. I plan on plumbing the overflow on the right side as opposed to the middle to try to give it a cleaner look. I had originally planned on putting it in the middle and painting the back black but I think I like the look of a clear tank better.



So far what I have is:
Tank - 44 gallon starphire
Stand - black ADA style
Controller - Neptune Systems Aqua Controller Jr
Plumbing - Glass-holes.com kit
Light Stand - DIY conduit

What I need to get:
Light - LED preferably but open minded
Sump - I don't know a lot here... but it needs to fit in the stand and I don't know if I have the space to make one from scratch
Skimmer - something good
Powerhead - I want minimalism so either a MP10 and and a bigger sump pump or an MP40 and a smaller sump pump
Pump - depends on powerhead.

I want to try to put this all together slowly over the summer. If anyone has any advice or a line on some equipment I should pick up, I'd greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, feel free to follow along and chime in at will. Thanks for looking!