The following list are the products I used. The brands are by no means the ones you should use, but will give an idea of the types of things you will need to get.
SUMP ITEMS
There are a lot of items you will want in your sump.
1. Heater
For a saltwater and reef aquarium you will need to maintain the water temperature. I have my heaters in the sump so they are hidden and not in the main display. My main heater is a 400 Watt Titanium Aquarium Heater by Aquatop for a 125 gallon tank. I also have a small 100 W Titanium Aquarium Heater in the sump. If my main heater were to malfunction I have a backup to hold over until I can get it fixed. I like these titanium heaters because they are long lasting. There are a lot of opinions on the temperature you should keep your tank and a lot of it depends on the fish and coral you will have. I keep my temperature at 79 degrees F. No matter what temperature you chose as your main temperature, stability is the key. You do not want the water temperature to deviate too much through the day.
2. Skimmer
In my opinion a skimmer is one of the most important things to have in your aquarium. A skimmer is a piece of equipment that keeps your water clean. Here is how a skimmer works.
I think a skimmer is very important and actually went a little bigger than needed. There are many skimmer brands and you can research the one that will fit your sump. I chose to go with a Reef Octopus 202-S model. The biggest consideration in picking out a skimmer is to make sure it will fit in your sump since a skimmer can take up a good bit of room. I placed the skimmer in the water drain section of the sump so that water coming down from the main aquarium will get skimmed before being pumped back up to the main tank.
The reef Ocotpus model I used is rated for 265 gallons and I have only a 125 gallon tank. I personally prefer to go a little big on the skimmer because it plays such an important part in keeping your water clean. Here is what the model looks like.
To operate a skimmer you plug it up and use the knob to adjust the water level. For this skimmer you turn the red know and water level rises towards the collection cup. The water will be full of bubbles and I take the bubble line about half an inch from the top of the collection cup. It will be personal preference on example where you want you water level to be depending on if you want a light or thick skimmate.
3. Return pump
As your water drains to the sump and gets skimmed it moves through the sump and gets pumped back up to the main tank. You will need a pump to to get the water back up. I started with a generic outdoor fountain/ fish pond pump. It only lasted 2 months before the motor played out. I needed to replace it quickly and after doing a little research I decided on a Jebao pump. The particular pump I chose was the Jebao DCT-8000. The rate or flow of water draining down in your sump depends on the flow of water going back into the main display. You want a good bit of turnover so be sure the pump you chose can push enough water up to maintain a good flow. Remember the higher you have to push water up, the lower your flow rate will be for the pump.
I again went a little bit bigger than I really needed too, but I wanted to have a pump that had power. The nice thing about this pump is it has a controller to adjust how much water it is pushing. I run this pump in a 125 gallon at half power.
4. Reactor
When I first started my aquarium I did not have a reactor and I do not think this is something you need at the very start. However I am a firm believer that you will eventually want this once your tank is established. As your tank matures there are certain chemicals that build up. One of these is phosphates. As phosphates build up, they are fuel for algea. I ended up with a bad algea problem at one point and figured out it was high phosphates. A reactor can be used to help control phosphates. You add a procuct called GFO that binds phosphates. Your reactor has a small pump that pumps water through a column of GFO at a very low flow rate. I have a dual reactor which means one column has GFO for phosphate binding and the other reactor has carbon. The carbon helps with any smells and keeps the water clear. I have the reactor right in the middle of the sump. A small pump pumps water through the GFO column, where it then goes throguh the carbon column and finally flows back into the sump. I change the GFO and carbon every 2-3 weeks. It is a very efficenit system to keep phosphates in check and I recommend setting on up
There is a nice site called bulk reef supply and it has a dual reactor kit that also includes all tubing and the pump. There are alternative reactors, but this kit includes everything you need including all tubing. I haven't found a more user friendly setup if you want convenience.
The GFO and carbon can be found at this site or your local fish store as well.
5. Autofill
Evaporation is your enemy with a fish tank. I do not have a lid on my tank so that I have better oxygenation and so my lights have better penetration. however this means I get a lot of evaporation. the good news is that salt stays in the tank and only water is leaving. so when topping off the water you will use freshwater. Because you have a sump the water level in your main tank will stay constant. The water in your sump will go down each day depending on the evaporation in your house and this changes in winter vs summer and low humidity vs high humidity. I mark the level of water in my sump and always keep the water at this level. You can manually add water each day to back to the line, but the easiest way is to automate this step. I use SMART ATO (Intelligent Aquarium Automation) by Autoaqua which is just a small sensor and pump. The sensor goes in your sump at the water line where you want to maintain. The pump I put in a separate 10 gallon aquarium full of freshwater. As the sensor picks up that the water is low it tells the pump to add water. This keeps the water line constant throughout the day with you have to do anything except keeps the small freshwater supply filled up. 10 gallons of freshwater lasts me about a week.
Here is the magnetic sensor right at the water line you want to maintain. Once it senses water below the line, it will pump water into your sump to fill it back up.
6. Filter Sock
As water drains into your sump from your main tank, it is preferable that the water is filtered. This is just another way to help maintain good water conditions. The filter is a type of mechanical filtration that catches a lot of the big stuff like algae or chunks of food. The filter is called a filter sock and is where you send your draining water. I try to replace this sock once a week although sometimes I get lazy and only replace it every two weeks.
The next picture shows my drain lines going into the filter sock. The black piece is a filter sock holder that has two holes already made for the tubing. It just hangs on the side of your sump and holds the filter sock in place. This is another great addition.
Here are the all the supplies put together in the sump.
And here is the bigger view where you also see the second tank holding the top off water.
MAIN TANK ITEMS
1. Circulation pumps
In the main tank the main piece of equipment you will have are your circulation pumps. The ocean is constantly moving with currents and your aquarium should be no different. There are so many circulation pumps out there. If you want some really fancy pumps then look up the vortech pumps. I chose two Hydor pumps rated at 1350 gph (gallons per hour). So far these pumps have handled the work load well.
Here is the pump in action.
2. Lights
The other huge piece of equipment you will need are your lights. This may be one of the hardest decisions to make. If you are going to have coral you need good lights. The golden standard of lights for years for reef aquariums were metal halides. The downsides of them is they are expensive and they run very hot! So you have to have good cooling. They also use a lot of electricity. You still cannot go wrong with metal halids, but with the introduction of LEDs you can have a cooler and cheaper option. I decided to go with LEDs. Once you make the decision of metal halides vs LEDs, then you have to figure out what LEDs you want. Once you start looking at your options you will see two categories. There are some name brand LED systems that are very high quality but with a high price tag. some names are Radion or Kessil. then there are your "Chinese Black Boxes". these are cheaper LEDs manufactured for cheaper, but sometimes quality can be suspect. I did go the Chines black box route, but chose what i think is one of the higher quality companies offering them. I used SB Reef Lights for my lights. You can see how many "boxes" you need based on your tank size at their site.
Lights are something you do not need for the first few weeks that you get your tank up and going, but you will want these in place and working before we get to the point you add fish and coral.
Here are the lights hanging and in action:
3. Netting
I chose not to have lids on my tank. Some people like a lid as it helps limit evaporation. The other downfall of not having a lid is that many saltwater fish are jumpers. Therefore I recommend a net of some type to help prevent you from losing any fish. This is not something you need to do immediately. We still have a bit of time before we add our fish.
The kit I used was a DIY netting kit form Bulk Reef Supply. They have kits for rim and rimless tanks. It took about 30 minutes to put it together for my tank.
Here is what it looks like once you put the pieces together:
Next time we will talk about getting your water, rock and sand set up and cycling your tank. Almost there!
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