A very few facts
The tank is 29 gallons, with a hang on back CPR 18" refugium. Filtration systems seem to change every few years, with the previous ones deemed by the new adherents as totally unusable, pronounced with the finality we have come to expect from the latest diet gurus. I have what seems the simplest and is only accidentally the currently favored method: deep sand bed, live rock, Remora protein skimmer. I have no doubt any of the many other methods would work as well. The tank lighting is 2x65 Coralite power compact with a smaller single pc over the refugium. I feed the tank's inhabitants Coralite liquid smorgasbord by tube and various dry foods, shrimp, live oyster, mussel, clam and fish from our own diets, as well as an occasional surplus guppy from another tank. I change 20% of the water every three weeks, using ro distilled water bought from a convenient supermarket outdoor spigot for 25 cents per gallon. Testing bores me, so I do what I must but no more. The ammonia and nitrites spikes that I was warned to expect never occurred, but I did have nitrates, so I tested them constantly and kept changing water until it was down to an unreadable low; now I rarely check. I have been watching for low calcium since I addeda few undemanding, but calcium consuming hard corals So far, so good. I have read just about every book I could find about maintaining a reef tank, but my best sources of information have been from two posters in the rec. aquaria.marine.reef newsgroup: Marc Levenson ( http://www.melevsreef.com/ ) and RichardReynolds. I'm also given good advice by the lfs ( http://wildsidepetsinc.com/ ) owners, one of whom, Doug Curtis, is the assistant to those in charge of Penn State's mainly Hawaiian saltwater tank. It is not due to lack of advice that I make any errors.