Titan tank raffle winner

[MrSean]

Hello everyone, as the title indicates, I was the lucky winner of the Titan tank build that was raffled off at the last meeting. First and foremost, I want to thank Titan Aquatics for hosting and offering this dream come true for me. Secondly, I now have been caught with my pants down when it comes to what equipment I want to put in this bad boy. This is just an open invite for any and all advice or recommendations for the build. Once i figure out what equipment I need and get water in the tank, I will make a build thread to share with everyone. thank you again in advance for the help. Long term I want this to be 80/20 sps/lps with a decent amount of fish. Im sure I’ve missed something but this should be good enough to get the ball rolling

equipment that I already have:
2 radion xr30r (gen 3 I believe)
2 mp 40’s
1 mp 10
soon to have - 48”x24”x22” titan tank

for lighting, I believe what I have will suffice but down the road I think I may add some t-5’s for the hybrid approach

filtration, I really like the roller style means of filtration vs socks. Thoughts? Obviously need a skimmer also, popular brands seem to be reef octopus or royal exclusiv?

reactors, this is where I’m kind of lost. I want to go the calcium reactor route but not sure what other types of reactors are suggested?

sump, brands? Styles?

algae scrubber, necessary? Anyone with experience?

I think I’m out on uv sterilizers but open to discuss them.

return pump: sicce seems to be popular unless going high end with abyss or royal exclusiv

 

[Ef4life]

Congrats on the win, it sounds like you have the lighting and flow fairly figured.

Filter rollers- I’m not a fan but I understand the appeal. Likes - automatically changes the dirty filter paper, cons - another expensive product to maintain every so often (float switches, drains, salt creep etc ) more points if failure, cost of filter roll material every month, lots of space required in sump area.

Calcium reactor - no experience with them here, but they definitely makes sense when the system reaches a certain size. Geo calcium reactors is a name I here often in regards to excellent calcium reactors.

Sumps - no real advice here, but I like things simple - sumps with a bunch of small compartments can limit your future upgrades. I’d personally go for a more open spacious design

Algae scrubber - necessary? No probably not, do they work? Yes they can. I have a cw100 on the shelf, build quality is excellent, but I could never get good algae growth at the time when using it so i eventually took it off line. (For the record I don’t use any algae filtration currently as it’s not been needed on my tanks)

Uv - it’s not necessary until you want one and don’t have it. I currently just installed uv on 2 systems of mine to fight off some bacterial bloom. I don’t have expensive units, I have jabeo 36w uvs- they work fine, but a better quality unit would be worth it for the mounting and plumbing options. The jabeo uses only soft hose barb fittings, I believe expensive commercial style ones brs sells allow for both soft and hard plumbing for a cleaner more permanent install. Even if you don’t want to use it constantly just having a decent unit in the closet for treatment as needed gives piece of mind.

No real advice to return pumps, but sicce is quality, personally I’d not cheap out here, I’d definitely buy a quality brand dc return with a controller, I’d oversized the pump by a decent margin and run it at 50-60% power for longevity