18 is better than 14 but 24 is easy to look at and a little more hight is better. 6-8 feet is not bad just make sure you account for it when getting a pump I would go a little bit bigger of a pump than you think you need you can loose head in all sorts of places and it adds up....safe than sorry thing. In my mind the width is important as well galons fade to the background as I have seen 200gal tanks look smaller than 90s (sort of) go look at the different sizes tanks as to look at all the sizes you are thinking of, then look at them again..........you can deal with a tank thats a little bigger than you wanted but once its to small :evil:

as you can see from just a few posts.......its blender time

I have seen this burning from t5 and it is a factor in the tank hight.

Well I am assuming it is burning from the light, I should have said bleaching.

I got the open brain about two months ago, it is a Trachyphyllia species which is supposed to require less light than other species. The colors faded out to a very pale color, I had it on the front sandbed with no shading. Then I read on RC about this type of brain being a lower-light coral, so I moved it under an overhang a few days ago.

Unfortunately all along the brain would not feed and today it completely disintegrated, not sure if this was due to light shock, starvation, or perhaps proximity to a leather in its new location.

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I would say its a combo of all of those reasons. I've never had a problem with softies and lps at the bottom of my 24 inch high tank. But I did shock a couple of acros at the top when I first got my MH lights.

Robb, a 24 inch high tank is cool because it gives you the diversity to arrange your corals vertically as well as horizontally. You can put anything requiring higher light up high, its that simple.

OK, What are the main differences as well as the Pro's and Con's of an External/Internal overflow?

How much in power costs are you actually worried about?
I have 24" deep 60" long tank. I am running 2 110w actinic vhos and 2 250w MH bulbs. The vho are on for 14hrs and the mh for 10hrs a day. I utilized this power calculator and input my kw cost off my power bill and calculated that it costs $20/month for my lights. Is this too much for you?

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/calcs2.php?type=electric

Probably not, I am mainly conscerned about the big bill to buy the lights more than the cost of operating them! I am working on getting my wife to source me a pair of 150 watt ballasts for a potential DE set up.

Ok, ya...definatelt bigger worry buying them than pauying power bill.
I picked up my entire setup with bulbs, ballasts, reflectors, fans and wiring for 960 including taxes and shipping.

http://ist234.sasktelwebsite.net/light1.JPG

http://ist234.sasktelwebsite.net/light2.JPG

http://ist234.sasktelwebsite.net/ballast.JPG

http://ist234.sasktelwebsite.net/timer.JPG

Hehe, its your tank, do what you want with it!! :wink:

Personally, I have a 90 gal (48x18x24). The height of the tank is incredibly annoying as I can't reach the bottom with my arm unless I'm practically in the tank. As soon as financially possible, I'm gettin me a 75g tank (48x18x20), it just works better for me.

There is nothing wrong with just using PC or what have you for lighting if you're into softies, but if you're thinking you may get hooked on sps/clams down the road you may want to sink your money into MH now instead of having to buy both PC and MH down the road. If I wasn't into having SPS I would have gone with PC lighting as the bulbs are so much cheaper (it practically kills me to buy new MH bulbs :razz:).

Internal vs external overflows, well I like my internal overflow. I used to have a external on my 48g tank. I had no problems with it but algae used to grow in the U tube and I had to clean it alot, I'm not sure whether the algae created the air pocket in the tube or what but there were a few times where just a bit more air and the siphon would have been lost probably (this case scenario is probably just mine as I seem to have a knack for growing algae as anyone here will surely tell you). When I upgraded to the 90 I figured what the heck and got the tank drilled. I still have to worry about the algae situation, now it just takes longer as it tries to clog up my overflow pipe (I'm sure again, I am the only one with this problem).

Definitely meet up with some other reefers, see what they wished they had done or what they have done to make their setups better, check out their setups, equipment and livestock and see what you are really interested in. Then take it from there. I know I wished I had done that when I first started out, you can get way more ideas by doing it that way.

just my two cents.

Christy :)

Well I have PM'd Alan about his set up that he is looking to get rid of so I will have to see what his is set up like and then work from there.