When people say skimmer I'm assuming they mean "Protein Skimmer"??!?!

Also people are suggesting:
1. ATO
2. Controller

Can't you do ATO with a Controller such as Neptune Apex Controller?

I am also new to this so I'm watching this thread as well.

>Can't you do ATO with a Controller such as Neptune Apex Controller?

Yeah you can, but the Ozmolator has an optical level sensor that is very accurate and reliable. You have to keep it clean of garbage, but it's pretty robust. I only clean it once a month at most. It doesn't interface in any way with a controller, so you can't get alarms from it on your controller.

One other thing that I'd say you need is some 2-part alk/calcium/magnesium dosing system or a calcium reactor. This is absolutely needed to keep your water chemistry stable. Your corals won't like big swings in alk or Ca/Mg. Another thing is a phosban/GFO reactor and an accurate phosphate test kit (the only one is the Hanna phosphate checker). The phosphate kit will tell you when to change your GFO. GFO can be expensive. If you want to cut that cost, look into regenerating (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/10/chemistry). Keeping your phosphates near zero will save you a lot of headaches with algae.

Top 5
1. Skimmer
2. Lighting
3. Media reactors
4. Powerheads
5. Sump to hide the equipment

Nice to have.
Controller
Dosing pump
ATO
RO/DI

1. Metal halide lighting if keeping SPS (I'm a die-hard MH fan) or T5s for LPS.
2. Over-sized good quality skimmer (really liking the SWC cones right now...have two of them).
3. A sump.
4. At least one controlled powerhead to make changeable flow patterns. I like the Tunzes, who doesn't?
5. A Tunze ATO, no other will do imo.
6. Good fans. I like the fan "banks" with 4 in a row. One set for the sump and one set to blow across the tank's water surface to blow the heat from the lights away. Good fans can remove 4-5 degrees and can usually avoid the need of a chiller if your house has central air conditioning. Chillers suck...they are expensive to buy and run, and they add a lot of heat to the room they are operating in. I'm using el cheapo Jebo fans right now and they are working very well.
7. Dosers or a calcium reactor. I prefer dosers.
8. Good quality test kits for calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium at least. I like Elos, and am interested to try out the Hanna Checkers.
9. Media reactor for GFO.
10. An efficient water change system that makes it easy so you will do it more consistently.

1. Tank
2. More money than sense
3. Tunze Wavebox
4. ATO
5. a cool pseudonym

sanity

you mean Salinity right?

I'd say if Sanity is on your top 5....you wont last long...:lol:

Oh no, I ment sanity

By than I mean the ability to control yourself when something happens. Like looking into your tank and all your sps has RTN.... grrrr

Sanity, i.e. being able to put yourself back together again when the tank floods your expensive hardwood floors, or the tank crashes killing all your SPS you've nurtured from frags for the past 5 years and that breeding pair of rare fairy wrasses, etc..

Good heater, ATO, good skimmer, a good LFS to talk about fish at, and msot importantly....TIME, too busy to clean a tank, you end up with lots of time cleaning up the chaos of hair algae, or cyno, or well... anything.