50g tank planning

[steelerguy]

About 8 years ago I purchased a used 50 gallon acrylic tank and stand planning on doing a small FW Tropheus tank. Well, I never got around to it and the tank has moved with me from California to Texas and then to NY where it has been sitting in a basement for 4 years.

 

After starting my 12g nano cube up about a year ago, I have finally decided it is time to dust off that 50g and get it up and running as a reef tank. Here is where you come in...this is my first larger than nano salt water tank so I could use some advice and help.

 

I decided to go with MH and T5HO after doing a lot of research and went with the Current USA 36" 2x150W MH 4x39W T5 fixture: http://www.current-usa.com/outerorbithqit5ho.html

 

I have decided I will be running a sump in the stand with a refugium. I was thinking about running 300 or so gph through this. Too much? Too little? I don't think I should have too much flow through here due to the refugium. Since the flow will not be too much through here I was planning on using a submersible water pump as a return, probably a Mag 5.

 

Now, 300 or so gph will not be enough so I also want to do a closed loop system. This is where I don't know how much flow I should go with. I would like to keep some SPS so I will need some pretty good flow, but I don't want it to be a maelstrom in there either. About how much flow do you think would be good for this CLS? I was thinking about going with something like a Turbo Sea 1090 or Little Giant 3-MDQX-SC both of which flow over 1000 gph at 0' head. With the head pressure and a ball valve I should be able to tune it to give maximum flow without creating sandstorm in there. Does this sound about right? Pump recommendations?

 

As far as plumping, I was going to use 2 x 1 inch blukheads in a horizontal overflow setup (Is drilling acrylic hard? It doesn't seem hard to me, but what do I know?). One for the sump the other for the closed loop. I am not sure about the returns. I was thinking 4 at first, 2 for the CLS and 2 from the sump but that seems like a lot of holes...what do you guys think? It also seems like overkill to have 2 returns for a sump that is returning ~300 gph, but I am a sucker for symmetry. Any ideas on how I should do the returns? Maybe 2 on each corner for the CLS and middle back from the sump to get the back side of the live rock?

 

Final thing before I type way too much. The stand is really stout using think wood, so it is nice and strong. The unfortunate side effect is that it is not very spacious inside. I was thinking about either making or having a sump built similar to this: http://www.melevsreef.com/acrylics/sumps/l/sump_model_l.html It would of course be smaller as I have only about 32 inches in length and after some modifications ~13-14 inches of width. In order to get the 13-14 inches of width I need to raise the floor of the stand up a bit so I will only have 20 inches or so height. It should work with a AquaC EV-120...or so I am thinking. Anyone have experience with that skimmer, it says on the site you only need 1/4" of clearance to remove waste cup. Also, what else should I be considering since the space is so tight?

 

Thanks for reading all this and I hope I didn't bore you guys to death! I sanded the stand today and will try to finish it up tomorrow and then maybe I can post some pictures...as if you guys have not seen a fish stand before.