[BarbMazz]

Hi, Chris, and welcome... you're already getting some good information here I see!

Reefing is way different from FW, and I think patience is the biggest difference I can see. I've been researching since November and I'm just about ready to add water. Been collecting equipment since then, and spending lots of money, too!

Once I get water into my tank and cycle the rock, I'm letting things settle in for about three months before I start adding livestock. I want to learn the water chemistry and get it dialed in.. watch the herbivores mow down the algae as it comes and get really familiar with it before I start to complicate it more. I figure the more mature it is, the easier the time my creatures will have when I do add them.

I think a sump setup is a good way to go; it adds water volume to the system, it gives you a place to put equipment rather than in the display, it gives you a place for a "refugium" which can help with 'pod production and nitrate uptake, etc.

There's lots of ways to set them up. One way: water flows down from display into first section where skimmer is, flows over-under-over baffles into refugium, flows over another baffle in to the return section, where the return pump pumps water back up to the display. There are many variations on that theme, too.