freshwater to marine

Hi Tim, welcome to SW and to AC! Sounds like you're on the right track equipment-wise. I would strongly suggest that you opt for the Kole tang over the naso, though - naso tangs get a little big, even for a 135g. I personally wouldn't keep one in anything less than 180g.

I recently got a small Kole tang and I'm quite pleased with it. You need to keep a somewhat messy tank to keep any Ctenochaetus sp. tang healthy as they browse on algae, detritus, and even sediment as they move around the tank. Fortunately, keeping a messy tank isn't much of a problem for me.

an easy way to save money is to get around 80lbs of dead sand then seed it with around 20lbs of live sand. in terms of skimmers i am using the Nautalus (sp?) TE skimmer from Kent. i'm getting some really good results from it. Kent also came out with a new skimmer which is supposed to be even better.

if you want to do a reef what kind of lighting are you looking into and what exactly do you want to keep in the tank. for a tank with general softies you could do with a whole bunch of VHO or PC bulbs. but for almost any hard corals you're probably going to want to step into the relm of Metal halides.

Koles are definitely nice tangs, but either shop in person or be very specific when ordering it online as the coloration varies based on the area of collection. Sounds like you've been looking at the Pacific ocean subtype, which is what I have. The Indian ocean subtype is more of a orangish color with mottled spots.

Kole tangs really aren't as aggressive as most other tangs, and mine pretty much ignores everything else in the tank. My 75g includes the Kole, a coral beauty angel, a tomato clownfish, a scooter blenny, and a pair of beau gregory damsels. As the tang grows in a few years I will be upgrading to a larger system, but for now I find that these fish all get along very well. You've got considerably more room to work with, so I would suggest looking into basslets, gobies, cardinalfish, fairy wrasses, and grammas as well. Take a look around the fish profiles on www.wetwebmedia.com and see what catches your eye.

I stack, but there's nothing wrong with using a shelf system.

It's usually best to start with some dry, base rock first, like tufa or lace rock...usually about $1-2/lb. Use this to make a foundation for where you want to stack the live rock, and then fill in the sand around the foundation rock. Once the sandbed is in place, then stack the live rock in place, or install your shelf if you opt to go that route.

Use as big of a sump as you have space/money to allow. I know people with 300g tanks that have 2x 125g sumps behind it...the more water you can have running through a system, the healthier and easier to care for the system will be.

1:30 shouldn't be too bad for transporting rock. Make sure that the LFS employee knows you've got a longer drive and ask that they put some water in the box with the rock. (When removed from water, lots of the mobile critters on LR will bail off the rock, and if they fall into the water they should be ok). It sounds a little crazy, but if you have someone who can come along and "baste" the rock with an eyedropper or cup a few times during the drive, it will help keep alive some of the sessile inverts that you might otherwise lose.