So I've got a tank... Now what?

So now that I've figured out my tank size I've moved on to looking at equipment. In order to set up a reef I will need the following items:

• Fish Tank
  
• Lights
• Heater
• Pump

There's a lot of choices when it comes to lighting your nano reef but the three main choices are: Fluorescent, Power Compact, or Metal Halide. I'd only heard of fluorescent lights before so I had to do some reading up on Power Compacts (PC) and Metal Halide (MH). I have a harder choice to make because I'm unsure what sort of livestock I'm going to keep. I know I want some coral and maybe a fish or two so I want to make sure that I have enough light to see things do well and hopefully thrive.

Metal Halide seemed like the best option available for lighting. The intensity of metal halide light is phenominal and it is the closest thing to natural sunlight. The down fall is the very expensive price tag associated with it. Lots of people will say "get the best of the best" but I'm trying to limit expenses to a reasonable number.

PC lighting on the other hand seems to be the best "buy". I can get a 24" assembly with mounting legs for ~$200 w/ bulbs+midnight leds. Compared to the $400 price tag of MH or the slightly higher cost of T5 fluorescents. I'm debating on what brand of light to go with but I will be purchasing a PC system for my tank.

Next I had to look at heaters. I didn't really do a whole lot of research on heaters to be honest because when I looked at reviews it seems like the hands down winner is the Ebo Jager. A 50W heater is technically enough to heat a 10-15 gallon tank. They also make a 75W and a 100W model that I can consider as well. Pricing ranges from $25-30 depending on the model.

Last but not least was the pump. I took a look at what most people were running on nano-reef's members aquarium section and found that the overall favorite was the Hydor Koralia Nano. It's able to pump out 265GPH (gallons per hour) and mounts to the tank quite nicely via a magnet. Not bad for $30.

Now the fun part! The bargain hunting! I've found that online retailers are able to provide me with much better pricing that my local fish stores so I think I'll end up buying a majority of my equipment online. I do want to still support my local shops though so I will still be purchasing sand and live rock from them along with my clean up crew. More on that when the time comes though. For now I need to do a bit of reading on the heater and then decide where to order from.

Cheers!