John,

an important part of planning your lighting is knowing what you want. For instanct, bright Metal Halide lighting for SPS corals, is not wholly suitable for a Lionfish, which is a nocturnal hunter, bright lights in a tnak like that usually confine the fish to a shaded area during the day, and there have been cases of blindness reported.

What are the dimensions of your 55, is it a 13" front to back show tank? If you measure it, you can probably find a nice wooden canopy and stand at one of the fish stores around town, or order one from any of them. If the tank is acrylic, make sure the stand has a solid top (no holes like for glass tanks)

THe Filters are a good start, though current thinking moves away from the ermperor and it's 'mechanical' filtration these days, most people will tell you to get an overflow and put it all in the sump, get rid of the emperor and go with the skimmer only, you can filter with carbon by simply tossing it in a media bag and floating it in the sump. (That is for reef tanks) I personally have been unable to break ties with mechanical filtration, even on my reef tank I still run a canister filter (MAgnum 350).

My advice, and I think everyone on the forum will back me up, if your not quite sure what you want, take a day and visit as many fish stores as you can find, go to san antonio and austin since your smack dab inbetween us, and explore. Grab a couple good books, such as The Concientious Marine Aquarist, and perhaps the Natural Reef by Tullok, or Anthony Calfo's new book (goes into great depth on sumps and refugiums). And of course, visit here, and talk to us, there are some truly great minds on this board, young and not quite as young (was that tactful?) everyone from shark keepers to turtle keepers (your tank is to small for both by a long shot ) and people keeping gorgeous nano reefs in 1 gallon cubes to multi hundred gallon aquariums, and even multi thousands in the case of JIm NOrris, so there is tons of info to pull from here.

Go ahead and set up your stand, get your canopy put up, and fill the tank up with water, if you have a sump, or want to get your tank drilled or have an overflow built so you can have a sump (talk to dan for overflows) then get it all set up and taken care uf, Dillution is the solution to pollution, more water volume, the better.

The best filter you can invest your money in? Live rock, Protien Skimmer, and then probably live sand... if you hav any more questions, just ask!