First time refugium

[millerdog]

I’m starting to get things together for a new refugium (first one). I was going to T off my overflow and have some feed right into it and will be using a 1.5” bulkhead off the side of the fuge to feed back to my return pump chamber in my sump. The container itself can hold up to 50 quarts. Suppose my questions are
1. Sand how deep should I have it? Was looking at doing a ½ live ½ dry mix.
2. What should I look at keeping in there plaint wise? I have read a lot about cheato and caulerpa don’t know where to start there. And what species of it do I want? Space doesn’t allow for mangrove plants.
3. How strong should my flow through it be?
4. Lighting any ideas? How long and when should it be on? I got this from Melevsreef.com--"Home Depot sells a spring-loaded clamping threaded-socket"; "It turns out that Technical Consumer Products is the actual manufacturer of the bulb. You can buy the bulb under the TCP brand name. The part number is 1P3816 5100K."--
5. And anything else I may be missing?

[Ping]

1. 1 inch of sugar fine sand
2. Cheato is easy and safe to grow.
3. Flow with a shallow sand bed can be slow.
4. The light mentioned is a good method. If possible a 12 hour lighting cycle opposite the display lighting cycle has some pH stabilizing benefits, but any 12 hours is fine.
5. A cup of live sand and cheato from a local source is all that is needed.