Hehe, its your tank, do what you want with it!!
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
).
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
