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I have been in the hobby with a 55G planted tank for about 3 years now and im looking at coming over to the dark side.

my aim is to create a cheap,all fish, fake reef in my 55G tank.
ill do this by making a polystyrene and polyurethane rock reef that will come off the back and side walls. i will incorporate realistic fake corals and enemonies in it.
my plans are to add 3 ocellaris clowns, about 5 blue green damsels and a royal gramma. any suggestions on my stockng?

some other questions:
what sort of filtration wll be needed?
whats the best sand to use?
what sort of test kits will i need?
How much will all this cost???

The only problem with the fake reef is that it will grow algea all over it and get coralline all over it so it dont look real. My suggestion would be to do a Fish Only With Live Rock. LR is good because it provides natural Bio filtration. You can do a fake tank but I would not do fake LR. Too much at stake for the filtration. LR and a skimmer would do just fine. Are you going to have a sump.

I would rethink the damsels, they tend to get mean. Also about having 3 clowns... you would need a very large tank for that to work. Stick with one male and one female. Like Melosu58 said, just go for a FOWLR tank (fish only with live rock. The live rock will act as you're primary filter agent)Use power heads to move the water in the tank. In terms of supplemental filtration I would recommend either buying a refugium or converting a power filter into a fuge. Also on that size tank a skimmer would really help. In terms of cost I would say go look for a local reef club, instead of paying 10$ per LB of live rock (you need about 55) You can find yourself paying 2$/LB. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Blue-green damsels are Chromis species if I'm not mistaken, and are therefore fine in groups; these species are not territorial like most damsels.

Best sand IMO is just good old coral or aragonite sand. Back in the day you could get SouthDown play sand from a Home Depot but I don't know about the state of affairs these days; I had to get SouthDown from a friend rather than actually purchasing it. The advantage is that these sands can buffer your tank and also do not contain silicon, a nutrient that may be used by diatoms. You can get coral sand from the fish store, but at the cost of maybe $30 per 50 lb bag. A 50 lb bag is probably all you need unless you're going DSB (which can serve as another source of filtration).

Test kits are the same as your FW ones, just make sure that they work for SW (some test kits will not). Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, pH, hardness, the works. Also, you'll need either a hygrometer or a refractometer to test salinity. If you're going on the cheaper side, a hygrometer will work, but IMO refractometers are the way to go. I think I paid only $30 for my refractometer.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.