okay, so i'm starting my first SW tank and wanted to get a few questions out of the way, just to start off with. I don't know a ton about coral but certainly would like to be able to house them after i'm sufficiently educated. right now i have a 65g breeder w/ a 29g sump to start off with. here's what i'm looking at:
lighting: Seems like T5HO is the cheapest route. I won't be hindered too much by choosing T5HO over more expensive options like halide or LED, correct?
skimmer: Don't know a ton about skimmers. I figured a quality in sump rated at 100g, any suggestions?
LR: I'm wondering if i can pinch a few pennies here. Can I buy cheap base rock and seed it with rubble rock? shooting for around 100lbs total.
substrate: what's the minimum sand bed depth I should use? planning on using aragonite but don't know which grain is correct.
sump: Not sure where to place chambers and in which order. I want to have macroalgea, DSB maybe, refugium, skimmer, etc.
water: Is it okay to use treated tapwater in a fowlr? I would invest in an RO/DI before adding corals.
livestock: right now I'm pretty far from planning livestock but here's some stuff i'd like and wondering what works and what doesn't. A pair of clowns, anemone host, cleaner shrimp, snowflake eel, foxface, lemonpeel angel, mandarin, sixline, brain coral, birdsnest, polyps, feather duster, etc. Any suggestions for beginners are appreciated.
heater: 2 dependable heaters @ 78 degrees?
flow: how many powerheads? how much flow to sump?
Sorry for the disorganization. Trying to learn everything at once. Any help is TRULY appreciated.