Trying to get into the hobby.

[SPR1968]

Welcome to R2R!!

 

[Ruben's Reef]

 

[LiveWire]

Welcome to the REEF!!

 

[FishyDP]

Welcome to this great hobby. This forum is a wealth of information and everyone is very helpful. Like others have mentioned, smaller tanks can be more challenging because things can go wrong much quicker. If you are a DIY type person this will open up many options, such as purchasing a larger freshwater tank on sale and drilling it yourself, making your own sump/stand, ect. You will find all of the info. you need right here.

 

[ScottR]

Good luck on your apprenticeship. I am a retired Union electrician (in New York) so we have that in common. I also have a fish tank so we have that also.

Just remember that much of what you read on forums is questionable or just plain wrong. It comes from the opinions of hundreds or thousands of hobbyists many of whom failed, quit, and went on to run the French Fry machine at Burger King.

Find someone on a forum, preferably this one, that has had a tank much longer than last Tuesday, look at their tank and if you see what you like go on to the disease forum. If they don't post on there about their fish dying, maybe you should follow them.

Not me because my methods are thought by some to be way to over the top and can't possibly work, ;Smuggrin but find someone in the hobby for many years who seems normal and has a healthy looking tank and doesn't sound like a snowflake.

It's great to meet you by the way and you picked the best forum.
Good Luck.

Oh, and I started my tank when I was an apprentice bringing home about $56.00 a week.

Well said Paul. I’ve been following Paul since before I joined this forum. (Yes, I stalked him online ) His tank is nearly 50 years old I believe, so that’s enough for me. Paul’s system has helped me build a wonderful tank that the whole family loves. So welcome aboard to the best forum online. Some true experts are on here. Lighting, nutrients, fish coral inverts, flow, equipment, etc. You’re covered.

 

[RomoFL]

Welcome! I also recommend reading up a lot. Start here: Ammonia and Nitrogen cycle

I started with a 20g and now moved to a bigger tank because it’s easier to stabilize. The 20g I have is a peninsula so the “sump” area is small - meant for a 10g. If you go small, get one with the sump that runs the length of the tank.

 

[Blutspitze]

Welcome to the forums! Good luck with your upcoming training and, as many have said, you can 100% do a nano tank. The just tend to be a bit more effort due to the potential for chemistry swings.

 

[Darth.Daddy12]

I'm a 25 year old man, looking to get into the hobby. I'm hoping to start my electrical pre-apprenticeship some time this month. I came here to seek advice, ideas, mentors, good deals and information. I don't have any reef aquariums or any fish at the time. I never owned any saltwater fish of any kind. I Just have two dogs named rhino and canelo. The one question I have is why are nano aquariums not recommended for beginners when that's all I can afford.

As many said it’s not recommended cause things happen faster and can get out of control fast. That said basic daily and weekly things make it actually a lot easier and cheaper then a normal tank..

I personally think nano tanks are great beginner tanks. They are cheaper to do. They need more regular upkeep but in much smaller amounts which teach good techniques wo The pain of spending half a day maintaining a larger tank.

I would personally recommend to first timers to start with a 40g breeder. You can still do this cheaper filter setup on one of them. A 40g is going to be over 400 lbs loaded up though so you’ll need a proper stand to put it on and for that I recommend one with cabinet doors cause you’ll have all sorts of things to store and keep out of the way and not looked cluttered. You don’t want something too deep. Side that means more cost to light it. Don’t want something to narrow cause it will limit scape options and getting good water flow will be hard.

The key to a saltwater tank is buying quality products up front. Buy once cry once. You can skip many things many use long as you prepare for it ahead of time.

A simple setup like this though will work from 10g-75g anything over 40 would need two filters.. but this cuts the need for a sump and skimmer and lot of other expensive first time hard to setup items out of the build and keeps it functionally simple.

One thing you really can not skimp on though is lighting. You can setup a good cheap tank but you still need a quality reef light to make it all work..

Few pics with bad lighting cause tank is sleeping and fuge lighting turned off too..

10g with aquaclear 70 hang on back positioned on side for better flow. Installed impeller for aquaclear 30 filter to slow flow a little while still getting larger filter body.

Using intank media basket to basically turn it into a mini sump. First chamber has poly fill pillow stuffing as a filter sock basically. Second chamber has some crushed coral to help buffer water chemistry and give pods places to live. Third chamber has cheato algae to remove nutrients from water.

Removed intake tube off filter and replaced with overflow for surface skimming.

In a 10g size tank I feed 75g size feedings daily and this setup handles it just fine with algae keeping the tank in perfect nutrient levels.

All I have to do to maintain this.. 6-8oz of freshwater poured into tank every evening when I get home from work due to evaporation of water from tank over 24h period. I do not have an rodi system to filter the fresh water anymore after my 210g burst but... I have a zero water pitcher which does same thing (will cost more long term and wouldn’t recommend this over rodi for anything bigger then a 40g) but rodi costs $200 to start plus setting up and zero water costs $25 to start and no setup. I leave the pitcher on the counter so water is room temp and close to tank temperature.

Once a week on Sunday mornings before family is awake.. I use a 32oz plastic cup to dip out 32oz of salt water and then use a 5 gallon container of premix saltwater that costs $12 per 5g container to refill for my water changes.

Many will flame on me for doing this but this is a good way to start when learning how to do everything it takes a lot of guess work and possible issues and trouble shooting out. (Less learning curve) the costs are easy to take for most cause it’s a few bucks a week instead of spending a lot upfront.

This gives you time to buy testing equipment over time.

This type of setup keeps things simple and easy for new keepers allowing them to focus on important things and not so much how to tap their house water line and how to mix and heat salt etc..

Petco imagination premix comes at a perfect balance of everything for a PH8 basic system and is cheap enough to get started with.

This 10g duplicate will cost..

$10 tank
$40 rock
$15 live sand
$50 Aq70 filter
$50 intank media tray for aq70
$15 50w heater
$5 Walmart pillow stuffing
$100 fluval nano Bluetooth 3.0 light (which doesn’t fit a rimmed tank and needs a little snip snip of the tank frame: (pic included)
$24 10g of pre mix salt (needed only 7.5-8g to fill so have more left over for water changes still
$30 pico overflow box for AQ filter
$7 **** if 1/8” acrylic for tank lid. (Trikes with razor knife to fit around everything.
$7 for plug in light timer for led grow light for fuge.
$15 for acke 12w grow light super glued to side of filter.

$4-500 total setup with fish.

Small all in one tanks are great cost savings but will need a little modification to most to incorporate a refugium setup. Imop an all in one tank vs a setup like this will cost same in the end but I think this is slightly easier for a new person. The all in ones will look 100x better though and most come with a light that will get you started but will eventually need to be replaced.

Just know you’ll hear a lot of people telling you that you can’t have a tank wo a skimmer or a sump etc.. there is easier ways to filter nano tanks and because of daily water top offs and small simple weekly water changes a lot of what you’ll here will not apply to smaller tanks.

Hope this helps you some and I highly recommend YouTube videos to learn as well as reading nano tank forums. Nano tank people get a little more cost efficient with their setups and systems and focus on the few important must have items more so then all the might need fancy stuff in bigger setups.

(Edit add)

much of this isn’t necessary you can do similar setup minus few things for $100-150 cheaper. However being new I wouldn’t recommend doing a bare bones basic system like you’ll see. This refugium setup will keep the tank stable for a long time preventing things that are not fun to learn about first time from happening. Imop this is the very best and simplest way to get started.

 

[Emarley]

Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[KJ]

Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[rodney]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

Welcome Emmit! Glad to see another El Pasoan here! I am currently running a 29 gallon, but we are building out our 75g right now, it takes time and patience! if you have any questions, feel free to post and you can always PM. there are a few LFS in town, some better than others. what side of town do you live on?

 

[emmit8]

Welcome Emmit! Glad to see another El Pasoan here! I am currently running a 29 gallon, but we are building out our 75g right now, it takes time and patience! if you have any questions, feel free to post and you can always PM. there are a few LFS in town, some better than others. what side of town do you live on?

Westside

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

Westside

Nice, me too. if you ever have questions or want to see some tanks, let me know, my brother in law have some nice simple tanks and right now us and 4 other guys are having reef wars haha its fun to pass time and have a couple beers doing so.

 

[Paullawr]

I'm a 25 year old man, looking to get into the hobby. I'm hoping to start my electrical pre-apprenticeship some time this month. I came here to seek advice, ideas, mentors, good deals and information. I don't have any reef aquariums or any fish at the time. I never owned any saltwater fish of any kind. I Just have two dogs named rhino and canelo. The one question I have is why are nano aquariums not recommended for beginners when that's all I can afford.

I started with a nano. Got very good at husbandry. Tank flourished. Eventually went large and i got lazy. Tank was never quite as good. Gone back to an even smaller tank now and its awesome.

Its purely water chemistry. The more water volume the less effect a change will have on it.
That could be salinity, calcium, kH, pH etc etc.

Heres an analogy. Add 1mm of bubble bath to hand wash basin. It will foam. Do the same to bath tub full and you wont get nearly the same impact.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Welcome.
As many others have said, given great advice and where to go for information +1 to that! 16 years or so ago, I started with a 29g because knowing I could succeed with a smaller tank, I knew I could handle a larger system in the future.
Good luck, ask questions, research, find a nice tank to follow, enjoy.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Welcome to the group. Some members have some really cool tanks in jars. So anything can be done with time and patience

Sorry I’m late saying hi