90 G Dream Tank Help

[grumpygils]

If any body is bored and has a few minutes to help, I really do not want to screw up! I pissed a ton of money away on crapy equipment and as I go bigger I really want to avoid it......again. As my wife says...."I am not rich enough to buy cheap"
Anyway,
In a moment of weakness, my wife has agreed to a new big (for me ~90-110) tank. I currently have a 20G reef which has a ton of LPS and SPS in it and is quite healthy. I have learned a ton from this site and so I am going to the next step. I will be buying a 90+ G standard or bowfront in the near future. I have never done a big tank with internal plumbing, but I want this to be the "Mack Daddy". I have little idea on what consitutes quality equipment. Most likely I will be ordering the tank, stand and hood from glass cages and having it sent to an artist to be hand painted (stand and canopy). I have questions for the Pros and would be forever grateful to hear what is good and what is bad.
Qs
Can PHs be drilled, showing only a hole with a directional adjuster?
Where should I have the plumbing drilled? Back Center, side, both sides?
How is best to hide it?
WHat is the deal with agronate (sp) for the back wall?
Wet dry? I want a refugium, how big should it be for 90-100G. WHat is the quietest system out there with in line pumps, protein skimmer and uv. What is the best protein skimmer?
Auto top off system? I have never seen one, are they all DIY? Also, I have an immediate need fo a R/O system. Not in line.
Lights
I am looking at something like 3 X 250 MH with 2 strips of PC actinic and 50/50s with moon lights. I hope to make the canopy 11 inches high, so heat will not be an issue. Who makes the quietest fans and lights. I have several sites where I can get new lights (like above) for around $600.
I will probably be going with about 60 LBS of live sand and 100 lbs of live rock.
ALl help, cool ideas and PICs would be greatly appreciated!
Mc

 

[ross]

boy, alot of questions there....i will try to help out some but im tired and gonna go to bed but anyways...i would drill a closed loop for circulation, thats the best way to go to elimate powerheads. Drill all the holes through te back or the bottom. glass cages makes very good tanks from what i hear. For a fuge, somewhere around 30g would be great. for pumps, you will want external. look into dolphin, blueline, theres others i cant think of right now. euroreef skimmers are extremely popular but there a little on the pricey side. well hopefully this gets ya started. lmk if you have more questions ill help out after i get some sleep!

 

[grumpygils]

Originally Posted by Ross
boy, alot of questions there....i will try to help out some but im tired and gonna go to bed but anyways...i would drill a closed loop for circulation, thats the best way to go to elimate powerheads. Drill all the holes through te back or the bottom. glass cages makes very good tanks from what i hear. For a fuge, somewhere around 30g would be great. for pumps, you will want external. look into dolphin, blueline, theres others i cant think of right now. euroreef skimmers are extremely popular but there a little on the pricey side. well hopefully this gets ya started. lmk if you have more questions ill help out after i get some sleep!

Hey Ross, Thanks for the start. WHat is the deal on a closed loop? I thought when you drilled a tank, you had a return to the tank and a draw to the sump. Is that the closed loop? If so, how does that iliminate the need for power heads and additional circulation? DOes the return have a multy head? I think I will probably send a gift to whoever helps me the most, so far you are the sole recipient! A small price to pay if I am going to drop a fair amount of casholeous!
Thxs,
Mc

 

[dburr]

A tank drilled for a closed loop is basicly taking water in the pump and pushing back to the tank in several locations. The water never goes into another tank, it's just a pump and plumbing.
You could do that thru the back of the tank. No one will see it. You may want an oceans motions unit which will split the return to the tank, water returns in one pipe then another and so on. Do a search on that.
The best way to hide pipe is under the rock. Drill and plumb the tank first then add rock.
Aggronite(spelling is my bad too) is sand. It will become live after a little while. And with that, forgo the wet dry. A sump or refugium is better than the wet/dry anyway. PUT IN THE BIGGEST YOU CAN FIT. For multiple reasons. Infact, if you put the DSB in the sump it's a great filter there and you can run high flow in the tank.
With a 4' long tank you only need 2 metal halides.