A friend of mine was going to sell me a 230 gallon aquarium and stand for a decent price (around $500), which I was giving some real thought to b/c I could (relatively) easily get it into the basement - it's only 24" wide.
He's building a 1000 gallon pond for his basement! I told him that I was thinking about building something in the 300-500 range, as it'd cost less and he offered to sell me a piece of glass he has from an old 300 gallon tank, and some zavlar he'll have left over from his project. I told him I didn't need the glass, as it'd just be a stock tank... that's when he brought me to his back yard to show me a 300 gallon stock tank he's not using!! I think I found my tank!!

It's a swimming pool style - cylindrical, only about 30" high, 4.5' wide and sits on the floor. If I use this tank, I can't see myself doing a CHOP style system... unless I modify the design slightly to have the FT act as the sump, and use the sump as overflow feed to the FT.
The problem I see with this is that I only have a 75 gallon sump - with evaporation, I don't know if there'll be enough flow to engage the sump-pump if I'm running a few beds. Anybody have some ideas on a design, given the space I've shown above?

Thanks!