I have a setup question

[lethalshine]

I have been reading and planning for a while and with tax return time near, I am ready to start my system. I have been out of the hobby for at least 5 years and I have seen some things have changed. I have yet to decide on the the size of the tank but it will be anywhere between 125 and 200 gallons and it will be a reef ready tank. I plan on it being a mixed tank.

My skimmer will either be a Reef Octopus NWB-200 or Reef Octopus SUPER
SRO 3000INT
My lighting Aquaticlife 420193 T5 and I may even go with the model with halides instead.
Tunze wave makers for water movement
RO/DI unit

But here is where my question comes in, The DT is on my main floor and my sump will be in the basement. I have an acylic sump that is 48 x 16 x 16 without any dividers yet. My plans were to have the left section house the PS, center section be return and right section be a possible refugium. I also have a 36 x 16 x 16 acrylic sump that I was going to use as a refugium only and have it pump to and from my return section of the main sump. With an external refugium, is there any point in having one in the main sump? I also just thought about having just 2 sections, the PS section and the return section. This way I have room to tie in a calcium reactor or phosban reactor, etc. I also plan on using filter socks. I looked at Melvsreef but most of those had the refugium in the sump. With space not being an issue, I thought it would be nice to have the refugium external from the sump so it could be bigger and I would also be able to view it while playing pool. Thanks

[seapug]

If you have a separate refugium plumbed off the return there's no real need to put another in the sump itself, but if you have the space you might as well go for it. It could always just be used as a chamber for media reactors, heaters, etc. You could even make the sump fuge a Cheatomorpha fuge and use the inline fuge for frags, breeding, housing specimens that can't go in the display, etc.

[Rocdoc]

You could also do a remote DSB in the inline fuge if you want to go that way. By the way, I would go with the 3000SSS if you are anywhere near 200 gallons.

Also, make sure your return pump is strong enough to counter the head that you'll have pumping it from the basement. There is a head loss calculator on the RC main page.

[lethalshine]

Thanks for the replys, I am going to go ahead and put the 3rd chamber in and design it to look like model F from Melevsreef.com. I am leaning towards a cheato ball in the main sump and the external fuge being a DSB fuge. I will also probably get the 3000SSS. I learned years ago with my first tank it is easier to save the money up and buy it once than going cheap and buying it twice. thanks for the advice