What equipment will i need for a larger tank?

That's not true. Some people claim that canister/power filters are "nitrate factories". As long as you clean your filter nitrates don't have a chance to build up.

 

Protein Skimmers remove dissolve organics (what causes nitrates). :roll:

How dare you join a puffer forum ! LoL j/k

 

The 150 should work. I would do the 250 and worry about heat later but that's just me. LoL

 

I can't tell you much about chiller brands but it got good ratings.

 

But power filters trap (some) organics, letting them rot into ammonia/nitrite/nitrate which prevents the protein skimmer from effectively doing its job...

 

Totally your call, but I would personally veer strongly against 250s on a tank under 75 gallons unless your aiming for an acro/crocea tank. That's enough light to bleach and kill most corals, uses much more power, costs more, it's much more heat, and may increase evaporation (plus need for chiller that you otherwise wouldn't have to pay for)... maybe I'm missing something but I don't understand what your planning to keep that would benefit from those lights. We run two 150w HQIs on our 180 gallon tank most of time, and just fire up the 250s on that huge tank for 6 hours each day to light the photosynthetic corals 26 inches below the surface.

 

If you're cleaning your filter like you should that doesn't happen. Every filter traps organics, that's the purpose of a filter.

 

150 watt bulbs will have plenty of penetration on that tank, and you'll still get that really cool shimmering effect

 

That's the intended purpose only of a mechanical filter, not biological/chemical filters. Biological filters are there to convert ammonia->nitrite->nitrate, and chemical filters are there to neutralize various chemical buildups within the water.

Since skimmers do an extremely effective job of not only trapping organics, but removing them from the water column entirely, I'd hate to put another form of filtration in place that would trap organics within the water column where they will rot and break down until the aquarist does maintenance on that filter. A protein skimmer only helps remove protein, not the nitrates that organics will turn into if trapped in a power filter. I understand that's an unfortunate compromise with freshwater setups since they can't run skimmers, but why bother with the extra headache and unnecessary work on a saltwater tank?

 

I have seem very few people that only run protein skimmers on their saltwater tanks. Most run sumps with bioballs and a prefilter pad.

Again, if you're cleaning your filter every 2 weeks nitrates don't have time to build up to an unsafe level.

 

Totally agree - if your willing to keep up with maintenance and water changes, any mainstream form of filtration will work. Heck, even under gravel filters work great as long as you frequently maintain them. One big upside is if you use power filters, bioballs, etc you can overstock your aquarium with fish without necessarily causing a crash. The downside are the nitrates slowly but steadily creeping up, requiring water changes (this isn't necessarily a big "negative" since, in my opinion, we should all be doing water changes regardless)

The local fish stores here condemn bio-balls and the like (Marv, the owner of Atlantis Aquariums was the one that advised me on how to remove the bio-balls from my setup... they are heavy into using skimming and chaeto, Joe, the owner of Fish World also strongly recommends heavy skimming and uses deep sand beds and blade grass, and over the last few years has been in the process of migrating bioballs out of many of their setups)

I've known many people running combinations of prefilters, phosphate reactors, denitrifiers, UV, ozonizers, bioballs, live rock, etc with great success with frequent maintenance, but I've also known people employing berlin style setups (primarily live rock, sand, and skimmers for filtration) that have had success for years without the need to frequently rinse and/or replace any filter media other then carbon. Again, this method can prevent issues with nitrates rising but requires understocking a tank.

I hope I'm not coming across argumentative, just trying to add another perspective that although there are many tanks successfully using pre filters, bioballs, and power filters (and need them due to how filtration was implemented for the tanks), there are many out there running successfully without them and they aren't necessarily "required" and under certain circumstances could cause more issues then they solve. If you are planning to use alot of live rock and a skimmer, it's certainly worth the time to look up "berlin filtration system"...

Here's a link with a brief overview: http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/liverockberlinsetups/a/aa052504berlin.htm