Coral Reef Tanks - Anyone do these?

LegitAM

LegitAM

WF Premium Member
Apr 7, 2010
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Been interested in starting one up lately, does anyone here maintain one?

I've been looking at going sub 20 gallon to keep it small, but I've read the smaller they are the harder to maintain.

If you do have one, what kind of coral/livestock do you have?
 


I have a small reef tank - 55l and a large Africa cichlid tank - 350l as well as a small planted tank in my office The reef tank is new so it's only got a few corals (zoas, a Duncan, sparking mushrooms etc) I plan o adding a pair of black clowns and some kind of gobi in the next couple of weeks. I've been doing tropicals for years but this is my first marine but I'm already hooked. Once I get to grips with everything I will probably strip my large tank down and convert it to a marine setup. Nano tanks are a good way to get into the hobby and there is a really active community and great kit out there now which makes it easier to get into.

The Nano Reef is a good site for information.
 
Search on here for saltwater tank or marine tank... At least 3-4 years ago there were a lot of us on here that had one, myself included.

I had a 75 or maybe 100 gallon tank a decade ago... Smaller definitely is harder to keep stuff alive in; reaction time to any little change happens too quickly.

Get ready to take out a 2nd mortgage on your home, BTW. As cool as marine tanks are; it'll never be worth the cost.
 
Protein skimmers and filtration are the key. Had a 100 gallon tank for a long time with absolutely no problems at all. I also would not try it with a small tank. Larger tanks are much more stabile.
 
It might feel like cheating, but you could try using a service at first to maintain the tank if you go with a small one. That way they could work out any quirks and watch after it when you head out of town.
 
Was a sad day (actually 2 weeks to dry it out) when my son accidently put a hole in the bottom corner of my 70
 
Wow wasn't expecting many people to respond to this thread.@Lukep - I assume you are/were running much larger than micro or nano tank based off the high costs?
 
dmnEPC said:
Was a sad day (actually 2 weeks to dry it out) when my son accidently put a hole in the bottom corner of my 70
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I know that feel... When mine died I'd gotten a hairline crack from my nephew bouncing a rubber ball nearby and hitting it... Didn't know until the next morning when the puddle appeared. :(


LegitAM said:
Wow wasn't expecting many people to respond to this thread.@Lukep - I assume you are/were running much larger than micro or nano tank based off the high costs?
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Yeah, I had a 25 gal sump underneath with live sand and coral... I think I had 125 Gallons overall, and tried lots of cool critters in there from crabs and featherdusters and shrimp up to a huge tang that ate everyone else.

In the end I must have murdered a good 20 awesome fish... Just my giant maroon Clown survived to get sold off to the fish store again. :(

I spend quite a lot on protein skimming; the tech may be better today but back then you could spend more on that than the rest of the tank combined and still not do a good enough job.
 
I have a 700 gallon artificial reef which I have a company maintain weekly. I wanted the live reef but I was told you really have to stay on top of it a lot more, and I wasn't interested. Start with a small Nano (20 gallons) and learn on that first. If you like it, you can always upgrade from there.
 
Look into biocubes if you are looking for something that is somewhat ready to go out of the box. I had an 8 or 9 gallon one that was awesome once I added more lights and a skimmer.

I liked saltwater but just finishing up my new freshwater for an asian arowana. Life is just much easier when you can literally drip filtered water out of the tap into the tank and not worry too much about anything.

Nothing really compared to salt waters diversity and colors though so it is a trade off for sure.

Would be cool to see pics of others setups, especially that 700 gallon
 
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I had a 20 gallon cold water tank, to 20 gallon fresh water tank, right now I am on a 10 gallon tank, they are pain the ass to be on top off, I was wanted salt water tanks, but I heard its lot to maintain plus they it gets expensive, from water cleaners, food, filter units etc etc, it would be great to see some sexy pictures..
 
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