Baby Steps

[mr_alberta]

A large, quiet "hi-tech" tank is actually not too too hard to achieve. If you want to keep noise down, run the water level in your overflow higher (so the water only drops down about an inch or less) and run a very low tunrover into your sump (5x or so), and get external, fanless pumps (Little Giant 3 series, Poiseden series, etc) and get some big SEIOs ot Tunzes for flow (if required). For a skimmer, run a needlewheel which are almost dead silent as well. If you run into heat issues, open some window

Also, I forgot to mention, plumb the majority of the system in Flex PVC or Vinyl hose as that flexes a little and takes away some of the vibrational noise.

If you do all those things, I bet that your tank would almost be 100% silent.