Herbert-
I will try to anwser some of your questions my sand bed is cleaned by my gobies I do have other inverts -conchs, cucumbers snails and a assortment of different crabs but nothing cleans it like the gobies, the sand bed is about 2 inches all the way around and is Cariblife sand I think it is called fiji pink. I only run carbon and the deltec ap 1004 skimmer for my filtration and I have never had problems with nitrates or phosphates I used to change a lot of water in the beginning and I think this helped me out a lot as I did not have a lot of problems like most new tanks, I went through the algae phases but as it matured every thing fell in line. I use a calcium reactor and have never needed anything else for this system, and hopefully I won't as I have a small fortune in equipent already, on the light issues I think it is your preference and what you are wanting to keep, I run 3 1000's across the back half because this is where most of my Acro's or sun loving corals are and with out them I seem to lose some of the bright coloration that I want I have moved corals from the back to the front under the 400's and had them go from bright yellow to green, so it is personal prefrence and how much you would like to spend on the light bill to run them for me it is well worth it to come home to this but be prepared for the central air to never shut off in the summer and the same with the chiller.
As far as your friend's tank with the 8ft depth I think it would be a full time job to maintain it, I have difficult time cleaning Coraline off mine on the sides of it because of the depth I have I need a ladder just to reach and then I can't always get enough pressure on the scraper so it takes time. I would look at more length then depth 4ft is very nice to have but 8ft you would need to get in it to clean it.
Reefwaters-
I did not have luck with the anthias but I will keep trying I really liked them they are not as impressive when you look at a couple of them but when you see schools of them they are very pretty.
I will try to anwser some of your questions my sand bed is cleaned by my gobies I do have other inverts -conchs, cucumbers snails and a assortment of different crabs but nothing cleans it like the gobies, the sand bed is about 2 inches all the way around and is Cariblife sand I think it is called fiji pink. I only run carbon and the deltec ap 1004 skimmer for my filtration and I have never had problems with nitrates or phosphates I used to change a lot of water in the beginning and I think this helped me out a lot as I did not have a lot of problems like most new tanks, I went through the algae phases but as it matured every thing fell in line. I use a calcium reactor and have never needed anything else for this system, and hopefully I won't as I have a small fortune in equipent already, on the light issues I think it is your preference and what you are wanting to keep, I run 3 1000's across the back half because this is where most of my Acro's or sun loving corals are and with out them I seem to lose some of the bright coloration that I want I have moved corals from the back to the front under the 400's and had them go from bright yellow to green, so it is personal prefrence and how much you would like to spend on the light bill to run them for me it is well worth it to come home to this but be prepared for the central air to never shut off in the summer and the same with the chiller.
As far as your friend's tank with the 8ft depth I think it would be a full time job to maintain it, I have difficult time cleaning Coraline off mine on the sides of it because of the depth I have I need a ladder just to reach and then I can't always get enough pressure on the scraper so it takes time. I would look at more length then depth 4ft is very nice to have but 8ft you would need to get in it to clean it.
Reefwaters-
I did not have luck with the anthias but I will keep trying I really liked them they are not as impressive when you look at a couple of them but when you see schools of them they are very pretty.
