ReefLove said:
4. I will have a balanced tank which means, small stuff like cleaner crews and then very small numbers of corals to begin and once tank matures I will add more things but as I said, I wont over crowd it. I do not want tank to occupy my life, it's just a hobby and not EVERYTHING. It's not that important.
6. I don't want to go technical in terms of LPS, SPS dominated corals etc. I will take care of these questions as they come.
This is all I was really asking for, and now I can answer some of your hardware questions as a result since it seems like you want a reef tank instead of just a fish tank, and do keep in mind as has been said many times people will have varying opinions.
105G star fire rim less tank
48½ x 24½ x 21
Decent Stand no canopy
If you're stuck on this tank, then so be it, I'll again mention custom will cost you more, a LOT more. Rimless is nice, and if you want that smooth look, all the better. My only advice is to set it up in a typical tank/sump setup. Meaning display above, overflows which bring water to sump below. Your sump should be large enough to hold a skimmer, and enough water that will go down into it should a break in power occur. All your heaters, and return pumps will go in there. If you're going to have a refugium, very often this is the place for it, meaning no separate refugium necessary.
2 - ehiem compact 5000 - do I need this exact pumps , they seem over kill?
You don't need these exact pumps, you really need enough water to pump from your sump back to your display tank. I don't often like my return pumps being major water movers, so I'll usually go on the small side for my return pump. I use a Quiet One 4000 on my 180g tank, and that is about as low a quality as I'd be willing to go with for return pumps. Feel free to shop around and get more. I don't think there is any tangible benefit to having two return pumps though, if you're going to use two pumps one of them should be put into a closed loop situation. These types of pumps usually are "expensive" watts as far as water movement goes. Overall my only advice here is go only 1 pump, and there are too many different types to choose from to say one is better than another.
1- R-300 refugium - do I need this exact one? it worth $350?
See comment above, I wouldn't even bother with this. Either have a refugium chamber in your sump, or find a use acrylic tank and plumb it into the system where your return gets split between the two.
1 - SSA ES2 Skimmer -- is it good or something else is enough ? $450
Never heard of this brand but a quick search shows it uses a Sicce pump which are decent pumps for skimmers. I wouldn't go with the cone shape, as that's a premium upgrade cost with little to no proven benefit other than it benefits makers more because they charge more
For a 100g tank that skimmer might be a bit overkill, unless you plan on feeding a lot, either way, something like a Reef Octopus might save you a hundred bucks or so and give you a similar result.
3 - Kessil A350 - market rate - enough lighting ?
That is one way to go, and should be more than enough light. The upside is you can tune the blue and white channels on each independently to get whatever color you want on the tank. The downside is that there is no built in timing functions, so they're either off or on (and you need to get something to deal with the timing). Another option I've been looking at is the Maxspect Razor, you could get away with 2 of those over your tank, and they have built in timing controllers, meaning you can have the lights come on a lower intensity then ramp up to a full intensity and even have times where only the blue spectrum is on, etc. I realize the store you are shopping at might not carry this though, although if it's the store that I think you're talking about he should be more than happy to order what you want rather than what he has in stock. Something to think about. You said you want some corals, so either of these choices should give you the output you need whether you do soft corals or hard corals.
1 - Tunz osmolator universal
Basically a fresh water top off, one of the more pricier options out there. There are others which provide the same thing and are quite a bit cheaper, maybe not with the same technology though. You will want something like this though to make your life easier. Also do note in this direction you also need some sort of freshwater reservoir in your stand (or in a closet out of the way behind the tank).
2- Vortech MP40 W ES
Again this is one way to go. Vortechs have a nice feature being as the pumps are magnetically coupled to the outside so no wires inside the tank, however if one of the sides of the tank is going to be "viewable" then that restricts a side to put them on, so 2 of these would be a bit of a waste (the 24" backside to front distance is a little short to put these on the back wall). Either way I would go with some mass-water movement device that move lots of water will little power, other than Vortech, you could go with Tunze pumps, some are rather small too so putting on the back wall isn't an issue, Korallia also makes similar type of high water flow pumps. Also not everyone needs pumps with oscillation, which adds significantly to the price of the pumps whether it's Vortech or Tunze pumps although Vortech doesn't make non-controllable versions where as with Tunze you can get something that just has a particular output. Really it's up to you though. I don't think you'll go wrong with Vortech pumps, but some have said they can get loud, louder than Tunze pumps at least.
1 - controller
Nothing of what you said makes me think you need a controller. I hate to say this, and I know you'll hate me saying this, but you need to answer the question of "What do you need/want to control" before figuring out what you need here. If you're going to go the Kessil route, and want an on/off timer for your lights that's going to be a very expensive light timer switch. None of your pumps need to be hooked up to your controller, if you go with other types of lighting like one particular one I mentioned, then you don't need your lights to be controlled either. The only thing that's left is any heaters for your tank, which do come with controllers built in (some better than others) but you can buy a heating controller specifically for them if necessary. A controller, whether it's a Reefkeeper Elite or Apex, is a really expensive toy that isn't as necessary as most people believe.
Also don't neglect things like water changes, how are you going to do them? Simply drain outside or to a bathroom and fill up with smaller containers. Or wheel out the Brute garbage cans and drain in one and fill with the other, etc. These are the little things that IMO wives tend to care more about than cost, no wife wants their nice living room with a water spill, or an ugly garbage can you're mixing saltwater in, etc.
Oh and no calcium reactor, leave room for it your sump, but starting out you can usually keep up with any demands via topping off manually.
I do not really care about environment reasons behind hobby as I believe it's integral part of it and doesn't need explicit mention here, and who doesn't love nature. It's nice to think we are helping nature but hey what about all the electricity and chemicals you are using to run the tank so I think one way or another we end up hurting nature and hard to see benefits in our lifetimes, every which way we try but we loose my friend.
Not quite sure I was really implying any sort of environmental consequences of having a tank, but more along the lines of I've seen plenty of people buy equipment they did not need, then go around and try to sell it and be a little depressed/down as to why no one wanted to buy it for anywhere close to what they paid for it.
