<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12083015#post12083015 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Marko9
JMO, take a look at this thread. I am sure some people have read it already, but Tony has been in the hobby for a long time. He was one of the early farmers for Tubs and Exotic reefs. For thise who do not know the goods they had, trust me, they are still the foundation for colal collectors.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1340229
Generators are a great investment. This is a great deal. I also know that there are more and more people DIVING into the sps game. If you invest all that money into a system and then the high dollar corals, do the same with your generator. I learned the hard way once. For the same reason that I bought a Honda is the same reason I will never by a rio powerhead. my $.02
Mark, you and I have already talked about this. This is EXACTLY why I have bought the Vortechs with the battery back up, am redoing my electrical, and redid my sump plumbing to eliminate the extra pump I had running my chiller and reactors. Now I just have the one Mag 7 running the whole sump circuit.
Its hard though, when your first getting into it you have two problems: A. You don't know what you need or how a system is supposed to be set up. B. There are so many ways to skin the cat, you can get confused on what you SHOULD have versus what you NEED right away. C. Which is the best brand or type. D. The last and biggest.........money, most want to put the money into the livestock, and wait for the NEXT tank for the backups and fancy setups.
I will admit it, I got lucky. No major power outages, no major equipment SNAFUs you name it. I have been reluctant to set up anything temporary due to my living situation.......(as I type this in my room, I here the gentle trickle of RO/DI water being poured into one of twelve 5gal buckets in here) Did I mention I hate apartments?
Regardless, one day you wake up and you have 10K of corals in your tank all power by two non GFCI'd powerstrips, one of which is laying on the vinyl hoses circulating water through your chiller.
I got lucky, even the guys that you would never expect to fall victim to power outages, or equipment blunders have had tanks crashed, no one is imune and we are all a power outage away from starting over.
As this goes "somewhat" with the thread, I apologize for the detour, but remeber......Plan for the future, buy quality NEW equipment and spend extra for the good stuff. Once you have it, get into a maintaince schedule, and cycle out your equipment BEFORE a failure occurs.
With that said, when I sell my very well maintained Seios, don't by them and expect them to last you forever, buy them to try them out or to last you until you can afford the Vortechs or Tunze yourself.
