What piece of Equipment would I have bought if I knew how important it was in the beginning.

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Bryn

Bryn

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Well we have the plumbing and a half way workable sump.

The issue is that everyone loves to hype up skimmers, and there is this idea that you need to use a lot of different filtration solutions together. For the $330 I spent on the skimmer, I could have easily gotten a black box grow light, powerheads, more macro, and a skimmer pump to aerate the water, not to mention the space that would become available for use as a fuge.

Let alone trying to figure out with ever ones opinions about which is the best skimmer, what works, why it does not, where to buy from, how much flow, how deep. One thing I did learn about skimmers which I had not thought about was the pump, and the power it consumes.

An example is the Bubble Magus Curve 7 I think, the old pump compared to the new pump. Over a year you can almost save $40 in electricity on the pump choice alone.
 
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Bryn

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What issues did you have with the canister? I'm just starting in the hobby now and got a canister filter for my 14g breeder.

Good question, would also like to know. I keep a canister for vacuuming up the bare bottom tanks, works well when emptied into a sock back into the tank.
 

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For me I had everything in place before startup of my 120.
Except! I purchased ro/di from the lfs.
Picked up a used brs, bought new pre, carbon, di, and it makes things much easier now that I have a 120 and 45 frag system.
No more lugging buckets back and forth.
Have 2 55 gal drums for holding water.

One more. I have 2 full lumenbright reflectors with hqi ballasts and 2 250 watt de lamp systems.

Wish I would have set it up from day one as im looking at changing from T5's.

Now I have to build a system to hold it lol.

No hurry as the T5's work well.

It would have been easier from the start to at least have the mounting system in place.
 

Cprivi

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Apex controller hands down. Monitoring fundamental parameters like temperature, ph and salinity is literally a life saver; but automating everything is even better. Adding a DoS a year later is a close second. I use one DoS pump for ATO and the other for AWC. An overflow drain automatically removes excess water so no more lugging buckets!
 

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While technically not "reef equipment" I have to say a generator and battery backup setup. It would have prevented the crash of my first SW tank. I've got battery backups for my powerheads, emergency battery operated air stones, and a Generac generator now. A full home auto switchover generator is on my Christmas list lol
 
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My RO/DI for sure. Hated having to travel over 30 mins each way for water.

How did you connect it to the plumbing for water, and waste? Dedicated or Temp?

I have mine sitting in a Tote in the garage, and when I need RODI water I run a line into the kitchen, and the waste exits under the garage door.
 

robmiller2

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How did you connect it to the plumbing for water, and waste? Dedicated or Temp?

I have mine sitting in a Tote in the garage, and when I need RODI water I run a line into the kitchen, and the waste exits under the garage door.
I have mine mounted to a wall in my garage and my mixing station underneath. I have a faucet that I tapped into though my garage wall for the feed water. The waste goes under the garage door out to the garden.
 

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Lots of good answers here. There are so many necessities like a reliable way to measure salinity, parameters, but honestly, for me an ATO is a fantastic way to save time and keep salinity stable. Other than that, I wish I started with bigger tank with sump instead of AIO. Run out of space in the AIO sump quickly.
 
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Lots of good answers here. There are so many necessities like a reliable way to measure salinity, parameters, but honestly, for me an ATO is a fantastic way to save time and keep salinity stable. Other than that, I wish I started with bigger tank with sump instead of AIO. Run out of space in the AIO sump quickly.

Thanks for the reply, and Welcome to R2R. Jump in to some of the threads, I'm sure you have plenty of answers.

The ATO seems to be a theme we keep seeing.
 
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