sump ? for new tank

I am going to be delving into the SW world soon making the move from FW. Have only been fish keeping for a year but seem rather addicted and feeling the need to branch out.
I am planning to start up a 125 gallon tank with fish and some easy to keep inverts. not feeling up to the task of corals at this point.
my LFS priced out things that they would order for me and they were really high I felt. I am looking at a mega sump filter (model 4). My LFS quoted me $638.29 and I found the same filter on Fosters and Smith for $359.99.
I would like to save money and get some things from Craig's list but don't really know what I should be looking for. I have seen some wet dry trickle sumps for $60-$100 which be great if they are the right fit. I am planning on ordering a predrilled tank (have never seen a predrilled tank come up for sale used so I have given up waiting on this nugget).
Any suggestions or advice when buying used? Just for the record - please don't suggest building my own. That would not be pretty.
I am new to a lot of this eqpt and still learning the names of things. feel safer buying new from LFS store recommendations but man that will cost me an arm and a leg!

thanks!

 

it might be a good idea to research and build your own. I made a fuge/sump and in the beginning i also knew nothing. Mine may not be perfect now but it functions fine.

 

yeah I was gonna say you can buy your own sump if you want to but u can save alot of money making your own sump. I spent about 80$ on everything including the glue... which 80$ for a DIY is kind of expensive just use some acrylic and epoxy and you should be fine you can go to your local handy store ie: lowes home depot and they can cut glass or acrylic for you just make sure it is thick enough or you can even just buy a 40G tank and put ur own inserts in that and make it easy

 

Oh Good Lord, that's too much money. Build your own. That's what I did and I don't have one handyman bone in my body. I took a 20g long tank, cut a piece of acrylic, cut a piece of eggcrate, siliconed them in place and put it to work. That's it. I didn't bother with bubble traps because I use filter socks to control microbubbles.

Mine cost.....let's see......about $75 and I had left over eggcrate and acrylic. Here is a picture of mine. You can see the eggcrate in the first pic and there is acrylic below that complets the separation. The fuge is on the far side and it's 12"x12". I run a 90g tank off this thing.

Sump/Fuge



Fuge



Seriously, you DO NOT need to spend hundreds of dollars on this. It is really easy to do. If I can do it, anyone can.

 

good to hear that this can be done without a lot of skills. I was envisioning sawing up acrylic, plumbing stuff together without a clue etc. still new to a lot of the eqpt needed here. pharmrjohn - what else do you have in your sump? can you walk me through what I am looking at there? does the return pipe come out of the refugium section?
i have read of lot of people using "egg crates" to divide sumps, house macros etc. where do you get this stuff?
thanks for again for the help.