Great Lakes said:
And if you can position the tank on a wall with say a closet behind it......you can then empty the closet someday, and with the help of a wholesaw, have a mini fishroom.....
Yeah, I really have got carried away.
LOL that is what I am doing. I want a tank in the bedroom by the bed, a deep water with the Lys fire shrimp, black cap basslet, maybe a trio of anthias a yashio shrimp gobie, and a few other deep water species but I don't want all the crap, just tank so I want DH to make stand and put small discrete hole in wall to closet that can hold fuge, maybe sand filter & algae scrubber, ballasts, all the friggin wires & cords and everything!
Back to topic.
Excellent choice, a long tank. the surface area is very important as is the footprint as you want shrimp & may want corals & anemone - more on that in a sec.
Lights - wait. Get the tank & filters & skimmer if you are going to load heavy but I do not advise running a skimmer for first 3-12 months if you are not a stuffer, heavy feeder or impatient and don't have large voracious eaters.
The substrate will affect your livestock. Do you want blennies, jaw fish or anthias and mandarins? Your coral will prefer dif substrates & if you want anemone that influences your choice. you can go with live rock & bare bottom for a very long time. You can add/add to a sand bed any time. OOlitic is traditional choice for deep sand bed but with variable heavy flow or diggers you have an abstractionist fog rather than a crystal clear tank. Arag helps with water chem. the larger the sand or substrate the more debris gets caught & you may need to manually stir or vac depending on clean crew but the shell rubble - anything 1 cm or larger is HUGE - should be very thin, 1/4 - 1/2" max. OOlitic DSB can be 6" or more. With a long not very deep tank you can do a 4" DSB and get all benefits.
Yes you can & may well want to put the skimmer under/out of sight, many run it (logically) in the sump.
really be cautious on the crabs. Most any that are called sally lightfoot get big, & most any crab will get big enough to eventually eat those shrimp at $30.USD+ per cocktail. If you want shrimp & may want corals forget the crabs, even the hermits till you have better idea what you want & have really researched them. Trying to find & then get the &*%^ @#! crab is not fun in the main tank you've spent months aqua scaping & getting flow just right for the lights.... Keep reading & asking about the specific crab you want on the boards to get other aquarists exp. Same with the urchin - great critter & where you are wouldn't be too hard to set up a mangrove swamp fuge, that is an area you could have the crabs & the urchin. Problem with urchin is gets big, is not a graceful or lithe manueverer, will knock over & rearrange your rocks which can lead to the "Oh My GAWD get the buckets!!!!!!!!!" when a tumbling ledge cracks the wall.
The anomone - if yu want one for the clowns they don't care. You will need HID for WC anemone; an anomone can live for centuries in the ocean, few make it a month and almost none past 2 years in aquarists tanks. Here in states you can get captive bred aneomone that may live well in captivity as they have lived entire life in tank. Percs in the wild assoc with aneomone species which have very high mortality in home aquaria. Also any anomone will eat your gobies. as will the crabs.
You can stock fairly haevy if you go slow - wait min 3 months even more if you can to build up zoo and beds then add a trio of shrimp, wait 2 months (new guy is in quarentine) then add a fish, buy new critter for Q, wait 6-8 weeks then add etc. If you always give a couple months between aquisitions you ladder up your biological without spiking. A 6-8 week Q really helps the WC to rebuild and recupe from all the stress of being caught shipped, caught, etc. It also makes sure you catch any hidden illness bacteria or parasite.
Snails totally worth the money - UNLESS YOU HAVE CRABS. Or like to buy expensive live food for your crabs including the hermits. But I would mix the kinds of snails and the mix depends on the substrate. Turbo can & will knock over corals and all y0ou frags & some LR. Cerrith, nas and astrea are great and you should have 3 to a couple dozen of each depending on substrate, load & other livestock. A couple to a half dozen bumble bees are fun addition & pretty safe. Again do not fell that you have to get the whole janitor staff at once. Get a few of each then add more as the tank grows and needs/can support them.
Starfish - please wait at min a year to get a star esp a linkia sp. They do not fare well in home aquaria at all. Try to find someone who has kept one healthy for more than a year. Do I hear 3 years? no? the others like general, choc chip - the protoeasters? are not reef or invert or small or medium fish safe & can rearrange LR. If you go with a sand bed a brittle or serpent is good after a few months & pretty safe, may loose the odd invert if you feed too light but prob not. You may with that size have more than 1 brittle or serpent but not more than 1 linkia or other similiar even after a few years. Oh and did I mention the crabs will EAT YOUR STAR? even the hermits can harrass one to death if not eaten first. The stars feet are very vulnerable. Also watch your intakes & power heads etc with any stars in tank.
Last night I got bored and started looking through websites selling saltwater animals and got a huge list of things I want to get though some of it will not be compatible with other things and no way all of it could go in so I have to pare it down. 
) The easy of being able to purchase them though usually means we end up with reds in the tank more than any other.
