yun We were encouraged by my father to co manage our 50 gallon tank back then. We were 3 boys doing all sort of chores but as the eldest, I was given not just the responsibility, but the heavy lifting and scrubbing work 
it was the usual gold fish tank and since our dad left us to take care of the tank, it was always in a swing from good to bad condition. That very tank actually still runs today at my brothers place in QC. Matibay din sya ha.Anyway, from 2001 until 2008 I was into Flowerhorn until some idiot dosed it with a bubbly substance that left me heartbroken. I nurtured that guy from barely 3" up until it was more than 12" with a full bulbous head
poster boy pa naman. Then my other champ Flowerhorn gifted to us, was evicted by my MIL after someone told her it was malas inside the house, oh crap! Last December, I finally gave into my wife's kulit to get a SW tank, she had an uncle who had a 300 gal tank that has never slipped out of her memory.
Thing is, I have always discouraged her about this, I knew how tedious the cycling and maintenance of SW tanks. I keep telling her about my cousin who gave up his tank when he couldn't maintain parameters and just concentrated on Tech diving instead, and that guy was a geek and I'm hardly anywhere near his dedication then.
Well it's the usual Cartimar experience, half truths and half info makes you buy into the instant reef tank. We got the Aqua One 80 gal model (measured dimesions with actual water line approximately 70 gal). There was a lot of live rocks and the substate was broken corals as it was a OGF-Undergravel system. LS was around 14 pieces of various corals and 18 different kinds of fishes that mostly died in the next 5 days.
I was pleasantly surprised that my tank didn't die on me in the first 2 months, with only weekly cleaning of the OHF media and scrubbing off the first spots of algae on my glass and topping off using deep-well water of about 2 liters. Oh, and I did 2 major rock scape dismantling, first to catch a pesky tiger fish that nearly annihilated the population and second to catch an angel fish that did the same.
The problem started when I let my 4 year old daughter do the feeding on my 3rd month, it's hard to say no to her being an only child. I guess this, the onset of the summer heat and that one particular week that I forgot to clean the OHF media as we had a medical emergency that screwed up the water and triggered a lot of die offs. By that time, the tank was also well stocked already.
I did a partial water change but my second mistake was not removing the dying corals immediately, I was hoping for them to recover but I guess they only made the tank recover less than what it could have. I was actually waiting for the tank to die by this time, I had plans already for FW. The water cleared up but Nitrates was 160ppm
After a week I did a major water change, and things began to get better. Bio load was now low of about 5 corals and just 2 surviving fishes. I added 10 snails and 2 gobies as CUC. Coraline growth was more pronounced after a week. NItrate 80ppm.
When my wife asked me what else I needed to do for the SW tank, I said, if we are going to do this, let's expect to do this the proper way. Otherwise I told her about my FW plans. All the way, she said, tuloy and dusa ko, patay!
With the summer heat soaring, the tank was registering even past 32deg, so I looked for a chiller as dosing with ice in the afternoons was proving futile. The chiller helped a lot, maintaing 29deg, I saw the surviving LPS began being stable and extending. I slowly added LS again and they are still fine, except for a plate coral that was ruined by this big snail that I added and now expelled
After 2 weeks with the chiller on and target feeding only, I did another major WC and nitrates is now 40ppm.I am now going to go with a sump/skimmer and refugium.
My first problem is my very limited space under the DT. Its going to have to be 2 separate sections as my cabinet is partitioned into two.
Another issue will be how I deal with the present OHF-undergravel filter.
Sump/refuge
The DT dimension is a bow design 39" wide, 24' tall and average of 18' deep. Net of cabinet walls, the footprint I will have is 2pcs - 12" x 15" for a sump/refuge.
The first one will be where my drain drops in, skimmer and an obligatory powerhead to transfer water to the next tank.
The second tank will be the refugium and the return pump. I know, its going to be tight, really tight. Unless I do this on another longer partition-less cabinet, its the only way there is now. So be it, as It's going to be a lot better filtration than what I have now.
OHF-Undergravel filter
I am trying to avoid disturbing the rockscape sana, but also afraid if I just abandon the undergravel filter tray, it might be a nitrate factory, are my assumptions correct? Or will the tray be just a big hollow space under the substrate.
If I cannot abandon the tray,my idea is to connect the OHF pump to a 3/4" pvc as my drain together with another 3/4" line that will be a dipped inside a overflow box (siphon lang) I will have made for added volume and catch surface water dirt and floating detritus once I get a wavemaker into action.
Given that I always use NSW and may have some extra live rocks in the DT that can be requisitioned to the refuge, is this going to be a matter of plug and play or do I have to cycle the sump/refuge separately before I pipe it in the DT ? My gut tells me to just go ahead, but my head says ask the experts first and pray that someone invites me for a tank tour
Sorry for the long rambling RP, but someone's gotta save me, and it's nothing better but a fellow Pinoy doing it.
it's broken corals 
oh well
