I am sick of pretending to know what I am doing, please help me or the fish gets it!

Hi, I am living a lie, I told the fishstore dudes that I know what I am doing because I was getting sick of all the debates with the skimmermedats and filtermedos! I have been keeping freshwater fish since I was 15, I am 28 now and I read all the fish stuff around here and everywhere else I can. I read up on all the aquariam stuff and I still cannot find the definitive answer to how to setup a saltwater aquariam. All the fishstores around here recommend hiring them on a weekly basis to maintain the tanks. I think this defeats the purpose of having my own hobby that my girlfriend, soon to be gripe/wife can't get her claws on. I have convinced her and those around me that I am the expert on fish, I did this because if she thinks for even a minute that I can't do it, she will hide my wallet so I would like to get myself going. I am looking at safe sized tanks in the 200 / 500 gallon range. I know the cost is exponential depending on the reef tank with fish in comparison to fish only. I have about 2000 dollars USD to spend on the tank (excluding the tank since the ones I am looking at are used.) Let's assume I am picking up the 200 for costs sake, what do I need? Any help is appreciated whether constructive or not. If your wondering why I am marrying this chick of mine, you should see a photo of her, she is worth putting up with

Thanks for the speedy replies

Hi there, To the first poster, I thank you for that link, I read through it and it was very informative, but most of the information was controversial and highly opinionated as there are are differing points on top of differing views. I just want to buy some stuff to show off and hopefully add too, and bigger is better, and I will sneak things in when no ones looking. My goal is to go fish only, I have read, experienced alot with coral with my diving excursions and my experience with poking around great stores/forums like this one but I would like to be realistic, I am sure all the reading in the world will not prepare me for simply plopping in some live rock in a tank with fish. I have my eye on some lionfish in the store, some big ones and some small ones, and then I can get a good fight going perhaps.The store that I am getting the fish from is considered to be the best around, they are unbelievably huge, walmart sized as far as fish stores go and they are experts, but again, they are telling me they prefer to come in weekly at my expense to maintain the tank. I think if I go fish only that should be cool, I was thinking of going to a lake near my house and getting some lava shaped rock and throwing it in the tank, I also got some hard driftwood from said lake areas and I threw it in my Red Ear slider turtle pond (3 turtles) and my fresh water garbage fish tank and nothing has died so I assume its all safe. The wood has been with the turtles for just over a year, rocks as well. What types of filtration, salt and what nots do I need to throw in the tank just to get a fish only tank going? I will go with the smaller tank to accomodate the cost for now, then later I will suddenly "find" a reef tank and put it somewhere. My big problem is that when I see an empty corner in the house, I think, hmm, a pond can go there, my wife to be thinks hmm, I can make Chris (me) work hard and put a useless couch there that no one is allowed to sit on due to me being a filthy pig of some sort.I am going to start digging a pond outside with liner and plenty of lake pebbles/rock even if it kills me, that way if it does, I at least have dug my grave ahead of time, no fuss no muss.

In addition

I should also point out, these high end fish stores don't have pro water filters from Marineland or anything, I snuck a look in the back, they have home made sump style filters with peat moss in it, I know its peat moss since I read about that sort of thing later, and here they are selling me a filter when I can make one. I would rather buy it since it wont look soo pretty\.

Trollish?

Sorry, don't know what trollish means. I love nature and I love fish of course, I also like lionfish, thats why I would like to adopt some. As for the showing off, I simply mean showing off to myself, so I can enjoy it and have my family enjoy it as well. Is that clarification enough?