to quote saltwater pimps thoughts., and my future set up plans.............if your tank isn't set up yet have it drilled [at least 2 holes, maybe even drill it in two places, on a tank that big, still 2 holes in each place] and put a skimmre box or boxes on it. [two holes so incase for some reason one plugs {unlikely} then stay with the sump but use vinal hose for you returns to the tank.....pvc "rattles" under pump pressure sometimes. but use pvc for the lines from the tank to the sump, try to use sweeps and 45's as opposed to 90's as much as possable {another noise creator}, then you can hang bags of media for the water to flow through on the bottoms of the pvc lines as it goes into the sump [no "junk in the sump" so to speak,lol. The reason for the drilled tank and skimmer boxes.....is this will eliminate spills in the event of a power outage or pump failure - - the water can only drop to the level of the skimmer box {no syphon} so you can't break it and pump to much to the tank either, look at saltwaterpimps profile, you can see the skimmer box in a couple of his picks.....it's simple and it works, less power consumption, etc.................................so well that I'm buying that tank from him in the near future...good luck, Snowboss

IMO...live rock and live sand are the best by far for biological filtration......a good skimmer is paramount to keep live matierials at optimum output.........I am not familure with the Fx5 filters or the current skimmers.... im running a small red sea skimmer on my tank and will be buying an ASM G2 skimmer for my 65 gallon when it gets here.......they are monsters but from what i hear and read they are indestructable and extemely efficient

http://www.aquatictech.com/protein_skimmers.htm

what you are stateing sounds perfect to me ....so far.......good luck _ Boss