Hey Stephen,
Welcome to the reef tank!
Keep in mind that what you do with both your water flow and your lighting in the long run needs to reflect what type of biotope/microcosm you wish to mimic when building or stocking your tank. The 4 basic biotopes of most tropical ocean reefs would be reef top, fore-reef, deep fore-reef, and lagoonal (there are many others, i.e., very deep fore reef; and other non-tropicals, i.e. oregonal coastline, Catalina, temperate tanks (there are corals from these areas...) in which the temperature, water flow, and lighting all vary). The creatures that come from each of these biotopes have pretty much the same requirements as the other creatures FROM THAT SAME BIOTOPE. This will make selecting equipment and flow parameters much easier once you have decided on what microcosm you wish to mimic. Once you've established the tank, water flow and lighting parameters, selecting the creatures for the tank will also be much easier (i.e., various spp. of the acroporae and milliporae genus for reef-top tanks, large-polyped stonies and softies for lagoonal, etc). My personal choice for a smaller tank would be the lagoonal microcosm; it is more forgiving of newbie (and experienced hobbyist's) mistakes and the corals that inhabit this microcosm are much more tolerant of wide swings in water parameters (as opposed to reef top...), and the lighting will be much cheaper and less costly in the operating sense. Water flow is much more manageable, and feeding the inhabitants isn't a chore (heh, heh, heh, "a chore at the floor of the shore..." heh, heh, heh!!!) Many of the inhabitants of this microcosm are also easily available as farm-raised or captive-bred, in my book a major consideration for hobbyist.
Lemmeno if you'd like more, but I would suggest reading John Tullock's "Natural Reef Aquariums" for more specific information about setting up a tank with this thought process in mind.
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Tom <"{{{{>(
(TDWyatt)
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. -Plato