So far with the tank it has been up and running for 3 months, all rock was live when I put it in so I didn't see much of a cycle, the one thing I added on this tank that i didn't have before was sand, I used special grade reef sand and feel like this was a good choice. I have to really crank up the flow in order to get it to move.
The reason for adding sand was mainly ascetics and getting people to stop asking me why there was no sand on the bottom of the tank. I never knew how irritating that question could be. Nothing like a compliment followed by "but don't you think it would look better with sand? All of the tanks I have ever seen had sand in the bottom" none the less now that I have it I don't mind the little bit of extra maintaince to keep it clean
I am having issues with some brown algae that is growing on my top rocks but with a week off of work I plan on getting my carbon. gfo and bio pellet reactors back online to start helping with some of that.
As for fish in the tank I currently have
Yellow tang
Sail fin tang
A pair of frostbite clownfish from sustainable aquatics
Two firefish
Flame hawkish
Mystery wrasse
Melenarus wrasse
For lights I am running 2 eco tech marine gen 3 radions which I will be adding another one when they go on sale thanksgiving.
Flow I have 2 mp10, 1 mp40qd, and a max spect gyre 150
For a skimmer I am running a reef octopus Diablo dcs 200 with a neck cleaner and Collection bucket for easier maintaince
My return pump is the eco tech marine vectra l1 and so far that has been working out pretty well
I run a smart auto top off into the sump which has a 25 gallon brute trash can for a resivore that has to be filled approx every 2 weeks