There are heaters called "bucket heaters" available at grange and tack & feed stores. They run about $30 and are pretty beefy. All of the solutions can be heated with those except your acid bath and the sealer. The sealer needs to be brought to near boiling, so stove-top works well... you'll have to figure that one out. The acid will react to most metals, and contaminate your bath, so either use a titanium or ceramic heater. The one Caswell sells is 300w I believe, and I know they heat slowly. I have no experience with those, so maybe somebody else here can chime in with their opinion.
You can pick up bottle brushes from the grocery and drug stores, but I prefer the stiffer brushes available at concrete and masonry supply where they sell epoxy kits for drop-in anchors. They have size specific brushes with long twisted wire handles that work perfect for paintball barrels and breeches. Depending on what you're doing, you may or may not need a selection of inside brushes.
Of course toothbrushes are usually free from your dentist twice a year, and since my whole family uses a sonic-care system, all the free toothbrushes head straight out to the shop.
For buffing, I recommend a spiral sewn sisal wheel with black compound for cut, and spiral sewn cotton with tan compound for color. Going any finer than that is a waste since the acid will dull the parts a bit anyway. Caswell caries a fine selection of buffing supplies. The black/sisal combo will easily buff out 320 grit scratches.
Speaking of buffing, I didn't mention one other chemical/step you should think about. I'm a huge fan of lacquer thinner. It cuts buffing compound instantly, removes oil/grease prior to stripping, and is used post-ano to clean off any masking goo that may be left after doing custom stuff. It will not dull polished aluminum, and is great as a pre-degreaser. It's not appropriate as a final degreaser, but will certainly save your degreaser solution from accumulating dirt and grime.
As for your tanks, here are some suggestions:
Stripper: 2gal of solution in a 3gal bucket. Use a 2gal bucket with lots of 1/4in holes drilled in it as a dip basket.
De-smut: Same thing.
De greaser: 2gal of solution in a 3gal bucket. Rack your parts and dip for a few seconds, then check for water break. Repeat until parts pass water break. The degreaser will dull the parts a but, so degrease sparingly.
Ano tank: Large plastic rubbermaid bin set in an insulated plywood box with leads for the cathode and racks. Make a bubbler manifold that sits in the bottom of the tank out of 1/2in CPVC pipe with 1/16in holes drilled every 3in down the lengths of the pipes. You'll need to weigh it down, or it will tend to float once it's charge with air. If you run your cathode (lead sheeting?) down the side and across the bottom, and up the other side ON TOP OF the manifold, that will hold it down.
Dye: Either keep each 2gal quantity in it's own 2gal bucket with a lid and pour into a rectangle bin for use, or use 3gal buckets with 2gal of dye in each and dye in the bucket. The round bucket is hard to get many parts in. Remember, you'll want to dye all the parts together for good color match... they can't touch the sides or each other or dark spots will occur.
Sealer: Keep this in it's own bucket with a lid until it's needed. Then heat in a ceramic coated canning pot. Return back to the bucket when cool.
Rinse tanks: 3gal buckets work OK, but it's nice to have everything racked and sitting it a rinse tank just prior to ano. You'll want to keep the parts out of the ano tank except while actually anodizing. Consider a rinse tank the same size as your ano tank, and racks that are easily moved from rinse to ano tank.
My steps:
Degrease parts in lacquer thinner.
Strip individual parts.
Dunk rinse.
De smut.
Spray and dunk Rinse.
Polish or bead blast surfaces.
If polished, clean compound with lacquer thinner & wipe dry.
Rack parts on wires.
Degrease individual parts on wires.
Spray and dunk rinse.
Mount racked parts onto bus bars while sitting in rinse tank.
Move rinsed parts to ano tank and start anodizing.
Spray and dunk rinse fresh ano'd parts.
Move all the racked parts (still on they're bus bars) to the dye tank (I use 8gal of dye in 10gal bins).
Dunk rinse.
Take some parts off the bus bars and hang them around the sides of the sealer tank, while other parts are still mounted to the bus bars, hang those in the center.
Dunk rinse and then spray down with WD-40. Wipe dry.