been away for a long time, tank design help
 

hello all,

Been a LOOOOOONNNNNGGG time since I've posted here. Well, I am embarrassed.
I used to be quite the "stuck up Plant tank fanatic" until I had an
opportunity to get a 125 gall reef ready tank with all the live rock and
bells and whistles. Guess what people?! over there in sal****er land they
get algae too!! Lots of it! all new kinds of algae to fight with. Just
when I became a pro at my planted discus tank... now I've got diatoms, red
slime, and the worst of all yep you guessed it HAIR ALGAE. Hah! The thing
is in a reef tank you don't have the nice macrophytes in your corner to have
your back and kick the algae's @**. BTW guess what the new rage is in
marine world? Hooking up a second tank to your main tank to grow only
"macroalgae" i.e. using attractive algae to outcompete the lower algae.
it's called a refugium, and some of this macroalgae is wild lookin. Anyway
enough of that now for my questions.....

I've seriously neglected my discus 55 gallon. But the absence has kind of
had the "walk away from the painting" effect. Now I want to do something
cool but I want it to be lower maintenance. Slow growers. With the reef
tank I simply do not have the time to dedicate to pruning every third week.
I alrady have a full carpet of lilaeopsis, and a bunch of stem plants. Full
bed of flourite. I've got 4x 40 watt NO flourescents, fluval canister, and
DIY CO2. If I remember correctly when I was "psyched" about a year ago
people were getting into cork, attaching "barriers" to the corners inorder
to make shelves so that the gravel was at different levels. if anyone has
any cool links or pics that would be awesome! I am picturing something
along these lines. btw is that glossostigma?

thanks everyone,
Ben