First time salt questions

[Doormatt]

Reefer:

I'm quite worried about the heat output of a 250W MH...I'm hoping that two fans on the (to be built) hood will be all I need, as there's NO room in my budget (or my stand) for a chiller. I was hoping someone else with a similar configuration would chime in...then again, this post has only been here for a few hours.

I'm waiting to hear back from people in my area (there's more than a few on here), on our local water quality. So far, I'm not having any problems with my FW tanks, but then again, they're a lot more understanding than corals are.

As for the fluval refugium, I was thinking of using it more for copes, and less for macro. I'll admit my utter ignorance here, but do copes need light? I hadn't thought about the flow problem though. Is there any harm in using the fluval (full of LR rubble) for just filtration?

I'm planning on using 3 maxi-jet 600's to stir everything up, and that should provide 480Gph of flow, which is more than 10X the tank volume.

I'm not 100% sold on the need for a skimmer yet, as a lot of the DSB stuff I've read says they're not needed. Then again, everything else I've read says they are (don't you just love the net?). If I do, I've been looking at the remora, or the Prism hang-on. Then again, after doing a quick search, it seems the Prism is a waste of money, and people favor the remora (why does this not suprise me, the remora is over twice the price).

Thanks again for all your advice.