WELCOME TO MY ADDICTION,
if you are going to go reef later on, then the best advice i c n offer is to go fish only with live rock, the lr is excellent for filtration, hiding, decoration and to anchor your corals to
Excellent choic for tanks, it should be easy to maintian(incomparison to other tanks), plus you will have alot of possibilities for stocking as well
but for equipment, my advice is and has been to use 1.5lbs per gallon of lr(if affordable, if not there are other alternatives), and a dsb(deep sand bed) and no crushed coral, good circualtion(at LEAST 10 x gal. per hour, in your case 1250gph), and use plenty of powerheads to achieve this you want good movement everywhere in you tank, and a sump with a skimmer, lighting will depend on what exactly you intend to keep
for powerheads, i like hagen and maxi jets, you sump would be best built by you and for skimmerrs, i like aqua c's
ONE VERY GOOD INVESTMENT
would be to get a good test kit for
ph, calcium, alkalinity,ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate THESE ARE ESSENTIAL, and learn to use them properly(if you already do, i appologize, but as i mentioned this is a vital part)
one last bit of advice, be prepared to be patient, this hobby needs to move slow, otherwise, your fishes will not be healthy and happy
welcome aboard
HTH and good luck
