Good advice from everyone. To help you out further, here's how my tank is setup.
I currently have a 30 gallon tank with a 15 gallon sump. I have an unknown amount of LR+base rock, but I'd say its around 30-40 pounds worth plus another 5-10 pounds worth in my sump/refuguium. I have no sand bed (except for a little bit of sand that "hitchhiked" on my rocks). My refugium consists of baserock and is packed with chaetomorpha macro algae. I've stuck some of the algae in between my baffles as a kind of organic filter floss.
My return pump is a Mag9.5 plumbed through a SCWD. Attached to the SCWD's outputs are Ocean Motion Revolutions for additonal random flow patterns. In addition to my return pump, I have two medium sized Maxi-jets. I forget their model number, and they are of an older model... but I think they produce around 200-250 gph of flow each. I'd guess I have a turnover rate of around 30-40x an hour. Keeps the bottom of my tank quite clean
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Lighting consists of 2x175watt 10000k Ushio MH bulbs, powered by two M57 ballasts I got from Bartle and Gibson for 63 bucks each. I'm also using one 95watt VHO super actinic powered on a workhorse 7 ballast I picked up from another local lighting supply store. Reflector is a 36" reflector + socket combo I got from J&L.
My skimmer is a bakpak2r that I picked up used from a local reefer. I'm thinking about eventually building my own beckett skimmer when I have some time.
Top off is handled by a pair (at least it used to be a pair) of float switches connected to a relay. Plugged into the relay is a small mini-jet (606 I think) pump. RO water is pumped from a 5 gallon tank through and through my kalk reactor.
Live stock includes a pair of ocellaris clowns and an algae blenny. Cleanup crew consists of 2 astrea snails and perhaps two cerith snails... though I haven't seen the cerith snails in weeks. I hope to add another 6 astrea, 6 trochus, 1 cleaner shrimp and 2 peppermints in the very near future.
Corals consist of a few mushrooms, some zoos, pulsing xenia, colts, an orange monti cap and a green-ish digitata. Initially I wanted to go softies only, but after seeing a monti cap in person, I knew I wanted one... the digitata was an accidental frag that I decided to keep. I hope to eventually get my hands on a frogspawn frag (if I'm ever quick enough
), or maybe a BTA. I haven't made up my mind yet... which ever comes first
I used to run PC lights over my tank (192 watts), and it was doing fine. However, I noticed quite a difference in my soft corals (I didn't have hard ones yet) after I switched over to MH lights. If you can, I would suggest going with MH lights which will save you any trouble if you decide to change your mind with regard to the higher light demanding corals. If I went MH from the beginning, I would have saved myself quite a bit of dough, which I would have put into a bigger/badder skimmer.
HTH
-Richer