What's the best piece of equipment you have purchased for your reef?

[WvAquatics]

My cellphone. I know it's not tank equipment. But without it I would have been standing in the dark on how to care for my tanks fresh or my saltwater tank. It's allowed me to research and research this hobby. Also gets me here with everyone to learn more and ask questions..

 

[Dustinc1983]

Single best piece of equipment... you. The forums, experiences, knowledge, the immediate help, the tips and tricks, help and opinions, the humor, the guidance, the years of lurking and then the courage and desire to jump into this hobby started here for me.
So while it’s free, my best equipment is this place. Like an alkalinity or salinity checker that gives me information, I feel R2R is my invaluable piece of equipment in a non tangible sense. Thanks

 

[N8Hull]

My rodi system has been my best purchase to date as I live 45 minutes from my LFS.

 

[Jeeperz]

My best piece of equipment is either my tuxedo urchin, Halloween crab, or my yellow watchman goby.

 

[Nralven]

For me it’s Neptune’s trident. With being able to see what’s happening real-time within the tank, the testing I’m able to understand and react as conditions change. For example, when my Alk is dropping this is an indication that consumption is increasing ie corals are happy. When I added more flow into the tank I saw the Alk drop. When Alk increases look for problems like salt drifting up or down or CaRx media needing to be refilled. When I increased light intensity I can see the Alk increase, then as the corals adapt the Alk drops and I can respond by increasing the effluent flow to keep up with the increased demand. In my case I have a 210 tall sps tank.
Next best would be a DOS that I use to drive my CaRx effluent. By dosing the effluent (I use the dose to push water from the sump into the CaRx), based on the Trident. This has been Revolutionary, This keep the Alk the stable it has ever been, while being very easy to make adjustments as the tank begins to take off.

 

[Trueblue17]

My Klir filter Di-7 , no more filter socks ,this thing is awsome ,put a roll in and do nothing more for months , this last roll lasted about 3 months and as my water gets cleaner it lasts longer and longer , love this thing

 

[James Emory]

I'd have to say, for now, my Simplicity DC Protein Skimmer. It's a breeze to clean and very efficient and quiet. I've been in the hobby longer than most of you have been alive and believe me I've tried a ton of protein skimmers and this one is the best by far. I've got a big Banshea Skimmer sitting on the shelf doing nothing because it is too large to work on in my sump. In fact I have a shelf full of items no longer used.

 

[McPuff]

So far I would say that my Osmolator has probably been the best purchase dollar for dollar. I did vote for lighting though, as I'm very impressed by the Orphek Atlantik V4.2. They look amazing, super easy to use, and the corals have responded very well... it's pulling new colors out which is nice to watch.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

I'd have to say my light has made the biggest impact on my tank and coral growth, an Orphek Atlantic Compact V4 for my 60g cube. I bought it over a year ago and still love tweaking the light timing and spectrum settings/ cloud cover mode, my sps seem to love it as well. It cost a bit but definitely a worthy purchase imo.

Do you have a build thread by chance? My DT is a 60g cube as well. Always like to see what others have done

 

[WiscoFishNut]

I'd have to say a tossup between my skimmer - Reef Octopus Classic 150 INT space saver and the ATO - AutoAqua Smart ATO. The ATO has been a bit glitchy lately tho(fill time alert going off in the middle of the night).

 

[Borg]

New credit card

 

[LotsOreefs]

At this time we just set up an RO system and it's a no waste system, we install one about a month before installed a regular Ro filtration that had a ratio of 1 to 3, and that was too much waste of water so we went with zero waste filtration. Made by Premiere. Couldn't be happier

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I was interested in finding out more about this when I saw that you said it is zero waste. This appears to be just an RO unit with no DI canisters and it’s always been my understanding that for our tanks we always should go with RO/DI so that when the water goes through the RO membrane and still has a little bit of TDS that will then get taken out when it goes through the DI canisters. So I would think that once your water has gone through this it’s still going to have some TDS in it. I also saw on their product page that it says this unit leaves some minerals in the water once it’s gone through, so this is also why I believe the water will still have some TDS in it. And there is also a line in there that says this is for drinking water. We use water filtration to get the cleanest water possible without anything additional in it or as little as possible in it, that’s the whole point of an RO/DI unit. And lastly because of the way RO/DI units work (water being forced through a membrane) there is always going to be some amount of waste water that you end up with, the amount being determined by a number of things (pressure, booster pump, water temp, permeate pump) some units are very wasteful 4 to 1 or worse and others and really good 1 to 1 or better. It’s my understanding there will always be some amount of brine (Waste) water to deal with.
Am I missing something here or what?

 

[LotsOreefs]

The first piece of equipment I bought was a tunze ato so since I never had to go through the stage of messing with water levels and hauling buckets I don’t consider that my most important. Second piece of equipment was my spectrapure RO/DI unit. I’d have to say my Kessils (H380, and 4 A360X’s) have been the most helpful for me. Second would be the apex with trident.

 

[visuvius]

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I was interested in finding out more about this when I saw that you said it is zero waste. This appears to be just an RO unit with no DI canisters and it’s always been my understanding that for our tanks we always should go with RO/DI so that when the water goes through the RO membrane and still has a little bit of TDS that will then get taken out when it goes through the DI canisters. So I would think that once your water has gone through this it’s still going to have some TDS in it. I also saw on their product page that it says this unit leaves some minerals in the water once it’s gone through, so this is also why I believe the water will still have some TDS in it. And there is also a line in there that says this is for drinking water. We use water filtration to get the cleanest water possible without anything additional in it or as little as possible in it, that’s the whole point of an RO/DI unit. And lastly because of the way RO/DI units work (water being forced through a membrane) there is always going to be some amount of waste water that you end up with, the amount being determined by a number of things (pressure, booster pump, water temp, permeate pump) some units are very wasteful 4 to 1 or worse and others and really good 1 to 1 or better. It’s my understanding there will always be some amount of brine (Waste) water to deal with.
Am I missing something here or what?

Thanks for this follow up. I, like you, was also excited about the prospects of zero waste water but assumed (correctly) that it was too good to be true.

 

[Allan3]

So Many to chose From.... But I’d have to say definitely
Apex & Accessories
Tunze ATO
Aquatic Life Hybrid w/ Kessils
RO/DI
ClariSea SK-5000

 

[H3rm1tCr@b]

Hugged pump with controller and light from Amazon

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I was interested in finding out more about this when I saw that you said it is zero waste. This appears to be just an RO unit with no DI canisters and it’s always been my understanding that for our tanks we always should go with RO/DI so that when the water goes through the RO membrane and still has a little bit of TDS that will then get taken out when it goes through the DI canisters. So I would think that once your water has gone through this it’s still going to have some TDS in it. I also saw on their product page that it says this unit leaves some minerals in the water once it’s gone through, so this is also why I believe the water will still have some TDS in it. And there is also a line in there that says this is for drinking water. We use water filtration to get the cleanest water possible without anything additional in it or as little as possible in it, that’s the whole point of an RO/DI unit. And lastly because of the way RO/DI units work (water being forced through a membrane) there is always going to be some amount of waste water that you end up with, the amount being determined by a number of things (pressure, booster pump, water temp, permeate pump) some units are very wasteful 4 to 1 or worse and others and really good 1 to 1 or better. It’s my understanding there will always be some amount of brine (Waste) water to deal with.
Am I missing something here or what?

Definitely have to add DI to it, and again depending on the technology for reverse osmosis no waste is new technology , doesn't rely on the old type of membrane system. The instructions when you buy the unit mentions when flow starts to slow down there's a little ball valve you open it for 10 to 15 seconds removes build up and it's back to normal.

Proof is in the pudding, these corals are some of the most difficult to try raising and make them thrive, Carnation corals. RO is one piece of the puzzle for these to thrive.

 

[KenO]

This is awesome. Can you explain more or link me to a thread where you show how this is hooked up? Thanks for sharing

I use these diesel fuel filters. You just need to get fittings that are 5/16” on one side for the filter and 1/4” on the other. I clean them using 3% H2O2. I fill them and let them sit overnight. A good shake and the filters are clean.

 

[mkwarner77]

ato #1, a close 2nd would be the sump i built.

 

[Perlaceous]

Mine would be the Neptune Trident I just recently bought yesterday.