Top 5 Tips For Starting Your First Nano Reef Tank

Abridged Transcript:

Hey guys I wanted to make this video to detail the trials and tribulations of my first saltwater reef tank. I think this video can be really helpful for a first time reefer and I hope you enjoy it.

Tip 1:
I used the cheapest sand possible and that meant that it was sugar sized and that definitely caused a lot of problems, where when I had my filter (Aquaclear 70) facing forward it caused the sand to make a large divot at the outtake it was also hard to maintain because you had to be careful not to kick up anything when you are going around gravel vacuuming the tank, or if you wanted to move some corals around you had to take care not to disturb the sand too much because you don't want a dust cloud and you also don't want it going through your impeller. I would recommend especially for a small tank where you don't have as much space to use special grade sand or larger grain sand so that it is easier to maintain.

Tip 2:
You will have to top off the aquarium much more often than a larger tank because evaporation is relatively quicker in smaller bodies of water. So a good idea is keeping a large water bottle and filling it whenever the water level goes down, that way you only have to refill the water bottle once a week or so and you can top off the tank when you feed the fish.

You would also have to keep up on salinity much more than a larger tank due to 1 its easier to change the salinity in a smaller body of water and 2 evaporation has a larger effect so salinity will rise faster since evaporation only takes water and leaves the salt behind in the tank, so make sure when you do water changes you have exactly 1.025-1.026 and you keep up on your top offs.

Tip 3:
I actually got this from inappropriate reefer where I put the hang on back (Aquaclear 70) on the side of the tank so that 1 it looks much better than using it front to back and second you don't need to buy a powerhead because if you have enough gallons per hour like 200 to 300 gph with the filter, you kill two birds with one stone and you are able to provide filtration and flow to your aquarium with one product.

The only problem is that you can't use standard glass tops with this configuration so you would either have to go open top, use an egg crate, or make your own glass/plastic top to combat evaporation and/or prevent fish from jumping out.

Tip 4:
Make sure to use RODI water, especially with a nano tank, it is god send and the entire time I had issues with the tank I can attribute it to not using RODI water and luckily for you, you don't really need a whole filtration system like I do to get RODI water, you only need a five gallon bucket since your maintaining a system smaller than 30 gallons which lets you go to your local fish shop to get the water.

I also want to say it isn't hard as it seems to be and it's pretty straightforward once you get the jist of things. You don't really have to worry about dosing because water changes can remineralize your tank and you don't need as much coral growth since you have a smaller footprint to work with. Lighting might be a little more expensive if you go for the standard options but I went with a super cheap $30 option and I was able to have kinda decent growth barring any other problems with water quality going back to me using tap water.

The only thing I found wrong with it is that it got extremely hot and it probably makes sense since I'm buying a reef tank for $30. I’ll put the link for it in case y'all really want it and don't care, but I don't really know, a part of me just wants to recommend a $60 to $80 option but I don't know how much better it is to be honest, it'll definitely better quality of materials wise, maybe even safer, like I wouldn't feel comfortable using this in a place with a pretty hot climate, but I'm just talking about providing sufficient light to corals. Oh well, I used this light and it worked okay for me, I guess if you live somewhere where it's decently cold for some of the year and it doesn't get too hot in the summer it’d be ok. The only other small tank light I used is the AI prime which is $240 and that is way out of budget.

Tip 5:

Just do it and don't worry about the outcome, research enough to improve your chances but don't do too much research because the experience will teach you a lot more than reading some articles. I know a lot of people are afraid of saltwater and it's for good reason but with time you’ll find it can be easier than freshwater, you just have to make that first leap. I mean look at my tank when it first started it looked like crap and by then end it looks much much better than what I originally started with.

Unfortunately the cheap reef tank led has been discontinued at the time this video is being published, sorry for any inconvenience :(

AquaClear 70 Filter: https://amzn.to/3IaqyaW
(This is an affiliate link and I get a small commision if you end up buying it)