I agree with Ben sumps are great. I'm setting up my 75, I drained about 1/5 of the water to add LR and sand. My back gave out after LR addition. It took me 9 days to complete the sand during that time I had 3 power heads circulating the tank, and two air stones circulating the fuge.- Well before draining any water I had the system running well 9 days after draining some water my overflow box external Amiricle, very similar to the lifereef, was srill primed the U-Tube still full of water I could squirt water from a turky baster in the inside box and see flow through the U-Tube. The point being even without a drilled tank getting water to -the sump is no problem and stays fine even during a power outage. It'll run fine when the power go's on. The hardest thing is setting the flow out to match the flow in and that's just a few minutes of work. Plus you can hide all your equipment heater etc... out of site in the sump. You can also use kick ass skimmers like the ETS Super Devil (I got one and love it) or the Bullet 1,2,3 or the ev180. And if you plan right when you do your return plumbing you can do it so you don't even need /power heads in the tank cluttering it up. Well I'll get off my soap box now, and say good luck with whatever you choose, just make sure to have fun, and to enjoy it, that's the most important, or you'll never develope a passion for SW tanks.
In Fish,
Sean