• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

The most important equipment in your reefing artillery

J

Jing_xoxo

The tax refund is coming up and I decided to use a part of it to pay for some equipment. Thing is, I dont know which I wanna do first! I have in mind upgrading my light first, but I just wanted to know everyones personal experience and advice. So my questions is:

What is the most important piece of equipment that helps you run your tank the best, and why? It can be more than one.

For me, nothing feels craazy important, but eventually id like to get a media basket, new lights, an mp10 and and ATO so I dont need to lug so often. I was also thinking about getting a nano media reactor too.
 
jgraz

jgraz

ATO, once you get one you won't know how you made it so long without it. Better yet upgrade the whole system.
 
kschweer

kschweer

Administrator
Staff member
Officer Emeritus
Moderator
I would second the ATO. Next in line would be a media reactor in my opinion
 
Cdiggy

Cdiggy

Controller by far. My reef keeper came with floats for ato, ph probe, temp probe and controls my lights, heater, ato pump, chiller, dosers that I added later, powers everything down for feeding and water changes. Best piece of equipment I have ever bought. Bar none.
 
Rwc

Rwc

Tunze auto top off is great especially since my woodstove sucks 2 gallons a day out of my system. Led lighting was probably the best investment I've made yet , two ai Vega's
 
dppitone

dppitone

Phosphate and carbon media, so a reactor for those. To me getting water right comes first, even though there are often sexier things that come up to buy beforehand.
 
ahvrivera

ahvrivera

ATO
Media basket
Controller
Light (Unless something is wrong with yours, then it would be number one)

Would be my opinions.
 
TanksNStuff

TanksNStuff

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
With an AIO like you have Jing, I would agree with Mike that a media basket would probably be #1 on the list. With a small overall water volume... easy media changing seems like it would be the most help.

Secondly (and would probably be 1st on my list with a larger system) would be an ATO. Evaporation without continuous top off can lead to swings in salinity, which is not good for fish or corals. Also, it could possibly lead to pumps running dry too, which is definitely something you want to avoid. So, keeping the water level both at proper levels and at the proper salinity is very important. Yes, you can counter this by manually adding water on a daily basis... but the ATO adds a little bit at a time throughout the day as it evaporates, which helps keep the salinity more constant throughout the day as opposed to a bulk correction at the end of the day.

With an AIO (assuming the lid is usually closed) there is less evaporation than an open system, but at the same time, the small chambers in the back don't hold much water. So, keeping those at a constant proper level is important. Otherwise, if it gets too low, water may not make it over the weir to make it to the filtration, or worse yet, the return chamber gets pumped down and your pump burns out.

Now, if you decide you want to get an ATO, you need to decide whether you want to get a stand alone ATO, or as cdiggy suggested... go for the controller. Most controller packages will come with a means to make your own ATO using their float switches. All you would need is a separate pump and a container to store the RODI water. The standalone will certainly be cheaper, but if you eventually get a controller... you now have a wasted ATO system that you will need to sell or keep as a backup.

I say you go for the controller as you will likely get one eventually anyway. This is a major purchase, but it will make your reefkeeping much easier. Not only will it give you the ATO function, but it will allow you to automate all pieces of equipment (on/off) and will also give you monitoring features like temp and pH (basics) as well as options for salinity, ORP, etc. with some of the more advanced probes. With the controller, you program it to turn your lights off/on at certain times (and with controllable LED's, you can also control the intensity levels at any given time or program sunrise/sunset features), control your heater based on tank temp, give you the option to run equipment during certain times (like put a skimmer on a schedule instead of full time on, turn on the fuge light when the tank lights are off, etc.), you can control dosing pumps (either based on a timer or based on an event like a pH reading), and you can setup "modes" like feeding mode or water change mode where pushing one button will turn off all your powerheads, pumps, ATO's, heaters... whatever you think is necessary. Plus, you can set some of them up to email or text you when certain events happen (tank temp gets too high or too low, pH gets high or low, etc.)

Controllers are not a "necessity" but they do provide you with a great deal of functionality that will make doing the necessary things much easier. And, the constant monitoring and notification options that let you know when something major is going wrong... they can be a tank saver. They also replace other stand alone equipment like an ATO or pH monitor, or an LED controller, etc. They have the ability to do all of that in one piece of equipment!
 
JRWOHLER

JRWOHLER

Can I be different?

How much do you want to spend? If you are like me you(I am sorry for you) you budget certain amount and then spend what you have plus a reasonable amount 50-75%.:lipsrsealed:

So 5-50 bucks ...media reactor...you can spend 5 bucks and DYI an eggcrate insert or buy one of those fancy ones Mike posted.
50-100 bucks ATO stand alone
100-200 LED retrofit I hated heat from power compacts in my Aquapod
200+ controller with ATO.
I would always do some sort of homemade basket if nothing else very easy to do and you have an easy way to add extra filtration to your tank.
 
P

PaulM

I find the tank itself to be most important. It is difficult to keep the water fish and corals in only one part of the room without it ;)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Cdiggy

Cdiggy

PaulM said:
I find the tank itself to be most important. It is difficult to keep the water fish and corals in only one part of the room without it ;)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Haha. Me personally it is my stand. Keeps the display tank off my sump lol
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top