Sound Off: What is your preferred reefing equipment? Your experience matters!

[ca1ore]

I buy gear that appears to be well made or has a track record of longevity, and I keep spares on hand for things that are more urgent than 2-day shipping. Everything fails eventually.

Choice of tank is mostly irrelevant as long as you go with a credible builder.
I DIY most of the simpler stuff like sumps and stands.
Lighting I use both kessil and ETM.
Flow pumps mostly vortech.
Return pumps mostly pan world
I’m partial to MTC skimmers and calcium reactors.
UV is by TMC; doser GHL.

 

[Biokabe]

1) Tank Manufacturer?

Aqueon Standard 55g aquarium. I'd say I'm reasonably satisfied with it. For the price I paid ($66), it's hard to do much better. Doing it over again, I'd probably go with something a little nicer and possibly pre-drilled, but it does the job, doesn't look hideous, and keeps the water where it's supposed to be.
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2) Sump Manufacturer?

Trigger Systems Crystal 30. Good build quality, and it does what I need it to do. Not the most bells and whistles, but it was a basic model and priced as such. It holds water, it divides things up into chambers, and it fits my equipment. I really can't complain about it.​

3) Reef Tank Lighting?

I have two different lights on my tank, and if I'm honest, I have a few annoyances with both.

On the left side of my tank is a DIY array made with two RapidLED Aurora Saltwater pucks, controlled with a Raspberry Pi running ReefPi. I love the amount of PAR it can put out, but I'm not totally satisfied with the color of the light all the time. I know I can tweak it a bit to get it just right, but with so many different ways of tweaking the lights, it's a little annoying to get the light dialed in just right. My second annoyance with this light is that RapidLED doesn't make those pucks anymore, so I couldn't make a second one if I wanted to.

On the right side of my tank is a pair of Kessil A160WE pendants. I kind of have the opposite problem with them; I love how easy it is to dial in my preferred color, especially with the spectral controller, but their output is a little weak for their cost. Still enough to keep the corals growing, but not really as much power as I would like for having spent more on this side of the tank.
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4) In Tank Water Flow/Wave Maker Pumps?

2x Maxspect XF230 gyre pumps. Again, kind of a mixed bag with these. They put out a phenomenal amount of flow, and with the controller, you can create a vast array of different flow patterns. So, there's the plus.

On the minus side, the pumps seem very hit and miss with the noise. One pump is dead silent, the other one I can hear at the other end of the house. It's not loud, but the sound carries very far. They can kick up a sandstorm something fierce, and messing up their positioning by even an inch can make all the difference between a coral-supporting current and a coral-burying tornado. I've actually lost corals because a pump was pushed slightly out of position in the middle of the night, and multiple corals (one of which I still haven't found) ended up buried.

For a bare-bottom tank, this would be a phenomenal pump, provided you got a quiet one. For a tank with sand, use with caution.​

5) Protein Skimmer?

Reef Octopus Classic 110-INT. Reasonably satisfied with this one. Mostly quiet, it skims protein. Assembly was a bit of a pain on it, and it's recently started spilling micro-bubbles into the tank.​

6) Aquarium Return Pump?

Sicce Syncra Silent 2.0 (568 GPH). Nothing really to say about it - it's a pump, it's quiet, it runs well.
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7) Aquarium Heater?

A pair of underpowered heaters... I forget the brand and make. Eheim for one, I think... not sure about the other. About to replace one with a Finnex Titanium. They've kept my tank heated appropriately and haven't cooked anything, so that's a passing grade.
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8) Aquarium Controller if any?

Right now, just a couple of controllers for my lights - a Raspberry Pi ReefPi for the DIY array, and the Kessil Spectral Controller for the other lights. The ReefPi is nice for being open source, DIY friendly and fully functional... it was a bit of work to start with, but I enjoy DIY so I can't really complain. Eventually I'll expand it to control more of the tank, but for now it's strictly for the lights. Can't complain about the Kessil controller - it does exactly what it was designed to do, the only quibble I might make is to include WiFi control.
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9) Aquarium Test Kits

I've tried a wide variety of different tests. At the moment, I'm really only directly testing three parameters: Alkalinity (Hanna Checker), Calcium (Salifert) and Nitrates (Nyos). I'm pretty happy with all of them for the same basic reason: Ease of use and accuracy of results. Hanna, of course, is incredibly easy to use - sample, push a button, add a reagent, shake, push another button. One or two minutes, tops, and accurate. The Salifert calcium test is the same as basically every calcium test I've ever used. Little bit of a hassle, but not too bad. I really like the Nyos test kit. The color sheet they provide is sheer genius, and really cuts down on the "What shade of yellow is this?" that you get with most other nitrate tests. I used to have to recruit my wife and her, "That's not Eggshell, that's Cream!" eyes to interpret the results. With their test, it's pretty obvious where it lies, and on in-between shades, there's rarely any question about where it belongs.

For more in-depth results, I'll run an ICP test every few months. At first I started with the Triton tests (I was originally using the Triton system), but I've since switched to ATI's ICP test. A little cheaper while also providing better service and more in-depth results. I can't say enough good things about ICP testing in general. It helped me pinpoint a major problem that had gone undetected until it was almost too late (copper leaching into my RO/DI system), but thanks to that and Hanna's copper checker, I was able to intervene and fix the issue before I lost everything.
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10) ATO

I use the Tunze Osmolator on my tank. A little expensive, but after a buggy JBJ ATO that I eventually had to control manually, I like how rock-steady it is. Never dumps water when I don't need it, it gives me an alarm when the water level is too high. I could wish it had more bells and whistles, but it does what it's designed to do and it does it very well.​

 

[PEP12]

Tank DD 1500s
Sump with above
Lighting 3 x Radion G4 Pro Leds
Neptune 2x Wavs (tried Gyres cleaning sucks)
Skimmer Deltec S-C 1456
Return Pump Ecotech Vectra L1
Heater 2 x Ehiem
Controller Apex 2016, 2 x DOS doser
Test Kits Hanner, Cal, Alk, Po4, Salifert

 

[Backreefing]

1 all glass 37 gal
2 none
3 China black LEDs/brand x t5 (x2) 192 Watts totaled just over 5 watts per gal.
4 MarineLand power heads x2 , jebao ow 10
5 none
6 none
7 Aqueon
8 none
9 api
10 whisper HOB
Looking at my list I’m cheap compared to others .

 

[Nep2nRevision3]

1) Tank: Custom glass tank 220g
2) Sump: Rubbermaid 100g horse trough
3) Lighting: Kessil AP700s
4) In Tank Flow: Current USA Wave (2)2100 gph & (1)1050 gph
5) Skimmer: Vertex Alpha 250
6) Return: Current USA Eflux 3170 gph
7) Heater: Finnex HC-810 w/800w element
8) Controller: Current USA controller (pumps) Finnex controller (heater) No full system controller
9) Tests: Hanna ULR for phosphates, Salifert for everything else