Your corals and the coralline algae on your live rock consume a massive amount of calcium, so you have to put back the calcium by either adding it directly to the sump in on a liquid form or using a calcium reactor. By using a calcium reactor, you have one less thing to take care of in your tank.

I’m a big advocate of running ozone in your tank. This is our ozone heater. Ozone is made of the unstable atom O3. As ozone passes through the water, the unstable atom detaches, attacks and destroys certain impurities. Ozone can inactivate bacteria, viruses and oxidize bold metals. Ozone also help powers the water. These are the ozone cell which is where oxygen becomes ozone.

The chiller, if the room where we are going to be keeping our aquarium gets hot at any time of the year, I recommend having a chiller. There are two main types of chiller, flow through or drop in. If you have the space flow through is the way to go as you can keep the chiller away from the tank and the sump. The chillers themselves throw of a lot of hit, so if it is far away from the tank, it is not heating the tank, it is trying to cool. When the water temperature gets high enough, the chiller compresses free on gas which makes the gas very cold. The hot water is then past over to free on gas which is constantly moved in a contained titanium coil thus, cooling off the water. A rough estimate is quarter horse power for hundred gallons of water but consult the manufacturer’s recommendations before you decide on the size.

A UV sterilizer is important to help you keep down harmful bacteria in your tank. An ultraviolet sterilizer does not unfortunately tell the difference between good and bad bacteria. It kills the good and the bad. While setting up the tank, you must gage the proper flow rate for your UV sterilizer so that the contact time with the UV bulb is just right. Too much contact time will kill too much good bacteria where the waters moving slowly through the tube. Too little contact time, where the waters moving too fast, does your tank little good in helping to keep dumb bacteria blooms which can be a disaster for your tank. Also, the UV sterilizer does not kill enough bacteria if there is just a trick oil of water going through.

Look at the pump you bought and check its flow rate to make sure the pump runs to the tank via three to five times per hour. Then check the UV chart of the manufacturer. A rough estimate is about five gallons per watt but it's more important to look at the manufacturer’s chart to see which UV sterilizer is right for you. Remember, if you do take off your main pump for your ultra violet sterilizer, it will cut down your flow to your main tank.