Alright, the first of many questions I will have before I'm ready to start buying anything I'm sure...
After everything I have read and now know, I'm fairly positive that I will want a sump to go along with my first reef tank. Obviously the sump handles a lot of the filtration for the tank. I do have a few questions about how y'all have put yours to use though.
1) What size/brand/type of sump would you all recommend for a tank that is somewhere around 40-50 gallons?
2) I think I would want a protein skimmer that fits inside of the sump (in one of the compartments), first, what protein skimmers for this size tank and sump would you recommend as viable? Second, is there only one part of the sump that a protein skimmer could conceivably be put into? Or is there a logical position for the different types of filtration within a sump? I'm very confused about the order of things (or if there needs to be any particular order to begin with).
3) What do you all personally use as filter media in your sumps? And what filtration types would you recommend for my sump given the proposed tank size? I know there are several and that some are more critical than others.
Right now the only parts I'm sure of are that I DO want a sump, and I want a protein skimmer inside of it. Besides that I have no idea what else I should be doing within the sump.
Lastly, is there any advice or recommendations or knowledge that you wish you had had before you set up your first sump? I would love to know enough so that when I finally DO take the plunge, I do it right the first time!
Thanks everyone for any help and info!
-Eric