Hello,
I am getting ready to set up my first 100 gallon reef tank, starting slow and still collecting the neccessary items. but my head is swimming with all the equipment made mention of on this site and others. Calcium reactors, Phosban reactors, ro and di filters, uv sterilizers, quaranteen tanks. How much of this stuff is neccessary? Is some stuff just going overboard? I already have a tank, lights, 29 gallon sump, and protein skimmer. Can someone please give me newbie advice as to what i really need.
+1 on definately needing an RO/DI
and I would say that a media reactor is a must for carbon and phosphate remover. the carbon should be changed out at least once a week.
next would be flow in the display tank...
stick with low watt/large outlet tunze/vortec style powerheads and avoid closed loops,
they suck up too many watts and the nozzel outlets are completely unnatural.
further more, I pity any reefer who puts holes and bulkheads in the bottom of the tank.
I'd say for a 100g mixed tank you should look at least 50x which would be 5000gph total between all your powerheads. more would be appropriate if you were going to do SPS.
make sure you have at least 100g of live rock, and if your going to do sand, keep it at less than 2".
for elemental additives use the highest quality that you can get, IE: pharmaceutical and analytical reagent grade chemicals like are found in Warner Marine and Elos products. DO NOT use kent or other low(food or industrial) grade chemicals.
a calcium reactor is great for the alk and calcium, but wont address other elements, IE; mag, iodine, trace elements, etc.. a simple 2 part dosing product like cal-max from WM might be a good way to go until you get a tank full of corals, then you might look into a CArx. also, I think dosing with a high quality amino acids product is very beneficial, elos and WM both make good aminos.
IMO, corals and fish care more about water purity, appropriate flow, elemental balance and being fed more than lighting. So basically, make sure you use that ro/di water, have a powerful enough skimmer, run carbon in a media reactor (and maybe GFO as well), have enough flow that your detritus stays in suspension in the water column and doesnt build up in the display, feed your fish and corals high quality frozen foods (and dont be afraid to use vitamins and amino acids).
for 100g you should have a skimmer that injects at least 600lph of air. if your skimmer is not powerful enough, then replace it with one that is.
now for lights you can have anything from pc's, vho, or t5 all the way up to M.H. or LED's, it just depends upon the corals you wish to keep, and what you like to look at.
