Aquarists unite: fish are friends, and food

100g tank with a 40g sump. I have a few opinions on tanks, a lot (most) are over priced as fuck. Like the Red Sea if I'm honest. $2500 for a 70g tank is fuckin insane, even if it comes with all the doodads. You can get clip on metal halides for $50-60, two would be good for 60-70, three for 100g. Go wide and shallow, with enough depth to fit some big rocks. You can go lower power, which is cheaper, and cast over a larger surface area, growing a lot more coral. I'd need to do a little research, but LED lights these days are designed damned near perfectly and will last 10-15 years, while expensive, provide a much more consistent light spectrum and penetration, without the bulb replacements every six months. Color profile is customizable, but I'll admit, a good T5 and/or metal halide setup can provide some amazing color and brightness. Metal halide is my favorite for authentic, bright as fuck, shimmering sunlight, but replacing a $60 bulb every 6 months was pretty obnoxious.

A $1-200 RO system I'd say is required if you want to have an ease of maintenance. Also if the tank is close to an area for draining helps tremendously. I had a 110g in a 3rd floor apartment where I was carrying two 5g Ozarka bottles up a couple times every week that I had filled up from a local HEB that had a 7 layer RO filtration system for $0.25/gallon, and had to mix in salt after. I drained water out off the balcony and I'm sure the grass in that area won't grow for another 25 years.

Let me get back to my desk and I'll link you to more resources than you can handle. But ultimately for equipment you should really buy locally, check Craigslist. I got a killer fuckin $600 4xT5HO kit, bulbs, ballasts, for like $60 with less than 2 months on them.

That said, if you have space for a 100g, I can provide a link or two for a tank with crystal clear glass in the profile I've suggested with an overflow. Then you can get new shit like a basic 40g sump with drilled lines, a proper pump, all that shit. I also have sources for sand, be it pool sand, or tahitian white or black. Depends on how fancy you want to go, and your budget.

Frenzied Wombat said:

I’ll detail it out later, but In summary a good setup as of a few years ago at least was:

Cadlight tank, stand, and sump
Tunze pump
Octopus skimmer
Neptune aquacontroller and power bars
EcoTech VorTech powerheads
EcoTech Radion LED lights

If you can find any of it used except the tank, go for it, but this is a great system with tons of automation.

Imho dosing isn’t important at all unless you run a lot of SPS. If it’s just softies and LPS weekly water change with quality salt for 5-10% volume gives you all the minerals you need.

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Very good suggestions. Surprised to still see Tunze as the pump, though I shouldn't be given I had one myself and it was the most expensive thing I had in my Frankenstein, Craigslist setup. $250 pump I got for basically free when I picked up a bunch of excess equipment from a deconstructed tank... Pump would last a lifetime if it didn't run dry.

Don't forget sand, salt, heater, hydrometer, filter material, glass cleaner.

$40-60 in Caribsea Tahitian Moon white sand
-A lot of people buy pool sand cuz it's cheap af, but I think it looks cheap unless you have a 200g tank.
$55 bucket of Instant Ocean, should last the first couple months
$25 150w EHEIM Jager heater and $40 temp controller
$10 plastic hydrometer (go digital if you're going for fancy corals)
$10 media Amazon product ASIN B01EYGAFVY-I love this stuff. You can cut it to size, it's cheap, and effective. White side facing the flow of water.
$20 Mag float glass cleaner

$1100 75g tank with 20g sump Glasscages.com - Online Order Form - 75 Tall (Rimless) Glass Aquarium
-Pick the following: Reef Ready, low iron glass, bulk heads, stand and sump
-Alternate with canopy option Glasscages.com - Online Order Form - 75 Tall Glass Aquarium
Amazon product ASIN B00C6ABF2O$289 skimmer https://www.marinedepot.com/AquaMax...uariums_Reefs-AquaMaxx-UJ00154-FIPSIS-vi.html

Alternate lighting options
Amazon product ASIN B078BRYW8R 2x Amazon product ASIN B00GFTSV24
...still pissed BuildMyLED stopped doing marine lighting. I have one they built for my fresh water tank that's absolutely badass. $300, custom light profile.
I've also got a buddy that builds LED's for horticulture, that he can just change the spectrum to be appropriate for a marine aquarium. He's got an ap where you just punch in the spectrum needs and the company builds out led strips to those specifications/brightness/PAR/etc, and he mounts them to a 1/8" sheet of aluminum. Pretty cheap, too. Not pretty, but very, very effective and a canopy would hide it. He accidentally turned on a giant sheet in my direction, a sheet that was intended for a large warehouse, and I had a giant white spot in my vision for a good 30 minutes.

Alternative rock suppliers
- Dry Live Rock for Sale | Aragonite Sand | Aquarium Supply - Marco Rocks
- Rock - Reef Cleaners

$56 snail package Quick Crews : Quick Crew (75 Gallon) - Reef Cleaners

For cycling a tank I just used real, dead rock, with a small seed rock from a LFS, or a piece of cycled filter material added to the sump.

River City Aquatics in north Austin has a setup very similar to that. Shallow water, bunch of circular coral frags for seeding. Similar lighting, specific for coral growth, not for appearance. Like magenta lighting for lettuce. Different lighting and tanks for each soft, LPS, and a few SPS corals. I should drop by and take a few updated pics.