EDKsurly so chemipure blue is an amazing filter media! It's basically the golden snitch of reefing, it will filter out just about everything like phosphates, larger impurities, and even medications, it has to be wet at all times, and it last about 5-6 months in a 10 gallon tank so it's great for nano reefs! You'll probably see something called ROWA at the fish store too, this is somewhat like chemipure except rowa only filters out phosphates. Rowa is also called granular ferric oxide, I run rowa and chemipure in my reef cuz I have one sps. I totally forgot about a water test kit gosh I'm such a goof! So I never used test kits for the longest time, and I always had problems keeping coral, then I invested in a API test kit, you can pick up the master saltwater one on amazon for about 20 USD. And then I discovered my alk was swinging from 8-12 when I was dosing about every other day! So no wonder my corals were having a rough time! So a test kit is a must for me, I test every 3 days regardless, even though I know the tanks fine I have to know how it's doing. You'll probably want a tester for dkh and calcium too which is sold separately by API. Now here's the exception, IF you do NOT dose anything, and you do a water change EVERY week with the same salt, then you will never need to test because you'll do water changes before anything gets bad enough to see on a tester. I do both just to be safe. Also you'll need a salt measuring device I forgot about that too! Get one of those refractometers on amazon for about 20-30 usd, way way way more accurate then the silly hydrometer I use. :)
EDKsurly oh and aragonite is a type of sand, it's made from crushed coral, they harvest the dead coral skeletons in the ocean, crush them into tiny pieces, and then use it as substrate, the good thing is that the coral skeletons leach pH buffer into the water for about 2 years which keeps your pH at a steady 8.0 which is perfect for corals and fish. My tanks two years old and I've never dosed a pH buffer but now my pH is slowly starting to come back down to 7.8 and soon I'll have to invest in pH buffers which is a bit tedious.
EDKsurly also don't run chemipure/rowa for the first month of your aquariums cycle, because the first month of the aquariums life it just needs to populate the biological media, so just run sponge and seachem matrix, after the first month you can add in the chemipure and/or rowa and then it will remove all the inorganic solids and phosphates and everything else before you add in fishes. I found if I don't use chemipure blue and rowa my tank can get a little dirty in a week cuz I feed heavily every single day, my little pigs(Darwin clowns) are hungry 24/7!
dude. Im a goofyball. I thought the Radion light bracket was the cost of the actual like. haha. But know that I'm thinking about it, they are pretty sweet. If I can skip the stand(use something I already have) the RX15 is in the budget.
EDKsurly i agree! They are expensive as hell but they are the best of the best!!! I built my stand out of 4 2x4s and one small sheet of left over half inch water resistant plywood that I had in my shed. Cost me a total of like 10-20 bucks and I spray painted it all black! :)
My first tank is cycling as I text this. I started out with a 16 gallon tank on sale at a local Petco. Tank, and a real wooden stand for 42.00 🤣 It even came with a hood and light. I am running a canister filter that was free. All parameters are Spot on. The live sand and salt made the tank free 😂
Long time planted tank keeper who has always been intimidated by saltwater, but watching videos makes it seem like a 10 gallon nano reef would be very doable these days. Thank you!
Hi John, thanks for watching! I would suggest checking out NUVO's 30 gallon all in one(AIO) aquarium unit: www.marinedepot.com/nuvo-fusion-30l-pro-aio-30-gallon-aquarium-bundle-innovative-marine?gclid=CjwKCAjwoc_8BRAcEiwAzJevtTYhex72F5-M4IA1DBO5EitzHMEueM79Q7BA1Xx_FYU1R_hdWy_ERxoC5IMQAvD_BwE& A kessil A160 would be a great light, i have one on my 25 gallon: www.marinedepot.com/kessil-a160we-tuna-blue-led-light But you may want to opt for two kessil A80 lights if you're just going to stock lower light corals such as leather corals. Using two lights will provide better coverage with fewer shadows. I would say 2-5 fish would be ideal to keep the maintenance down. Maybe two clownfish, a blenny of some sort when the tank gets established, and a goby or two such as a clown goby or neon cleaner goby. I have had them all together before and they are great tank mates. Thanks for watching!
Fabulous help! So appreciate. While I sound like a rookie, actually not. Just haven’t kept up. From 2001 to 2010, I had 75 gallon which evolved to no filtration. I got system to support itself between live rock and sand. Just did water changes for over a year. Life’s challenges drew my attention to other matters and it got out of my hands. So, I’ve enjoyed beautiful sea creatures but limited corals. I want to start a contained nano set up with adequate lighting to support beautiful corals. And yes, clown, blennie are perfect. Thank u so much for responding. So helpful.
Loved this video, there was a lot of great information. I really liked that you put lists for an Ultimate Reef Tank, Mediocre Reef Tank, and Cheapo Reef Tank
i just got biorb halo 4 gal i know its very small but im just gonna put some inverts and anemone on it is it gonna work also is it possible to have corals in there..?
apdroid geek yes it’s very possible, but very challenging. What I would recommend is to first cycle the tank for a month and make sure you put some fish food on day one to get the nitrogen cycle started with ammonia, then practice maintaining salinity. If you have to put 4 oz of water in a small tank everyday to maintain a 1.024-10.26 salinity then that’s what you will have to do to take care of corals. In that small of a tank your two most important tools will be a refractometer, that’s those super cool things that you put a drop of saltwater on and it tells you the salinity exactly, and a auto top off, I know there are some good ones out there, the ATK from Neptune is the best and can be used with just the optical sensors to make it smaller, and there is another brand I forget the name of that makes one for like 130-140 that is just a single optical eye. But the auto top off would essentially make evaporation null, making your salinity constant, making your tank stable! :)
Anyone, get yourself an aquaknight for lighting. One of the best budget lights for up to 20 gallons. It can grow pretty much anything. And it got more than just blue and white
This is exactly what I was looking for, only because what you said about the 21LED lights, lol. I have been looking at them online and it's good to have reassurance that they will do well.
Southern Fishing Addiction Hey thanks for tuning in!! The 21 led lights definitely do very well!! Montiporas grow at a steady rate and so does other lps like acans and even anemones! The 21 led units do get very hot physically in temperature but the light unit itself has never been hindered by the heat. They use bridgelux leds I believe which are a reputable led :) they aren't a kessil that's for sure but they will get the job done for a fraction of the price!! Thanks for watching leave a like! Let me know if you want me to make a video about something and I'll hop right on it!
Here's the blue heavy www.ebay.com/itm/LED-Aquarium-Light-Bar-BLUE-HEAVY-ReefBar-Pro-3W-LEDs-Bridgelux-Salt-Water-Reef-/282229803785?var=&hash=item41b6350b09:m:mBip8GczNsYlU597vT7Kwog
Southern Fishing Addiction so in my opinion I would not buy the blue heavy bar unless you can see it in person, because my reef, bar the standard reef bar pro, has a very nice color that's half white and half blue and really makes the corals look good. I do prefer a little more blue than the standard reef bar pro but what I would suggest is to invest in the SUNSETTER module by 21led and use regular reef bar pro units and fine tune the white leds down to about 70 percent and the blues at 100 and this should give you the same affect as the heavy blues but you can control it whenever you wish. Blue light improves coral COLOR and white light improves coral GROWTH, so corals will grow faster in white light with less color and will grow slower in blue light but will contain more color so it's really up to you in the end but I suggest regular reef bar pros with the sunsetter :) thanks for watching!
Question: So I have a tank I used for two different times only for freshwater fish and freshwater live plants. I'm thinking of starting a saltwater tank, could I use that tank or could it be "contaminated" by freshwater??? Its only 3.7 gallons so its seriously tiny but I don't want my tank to be to big (for trying out coral only I mean)
Hannah H. I'm not an experienced reefer or anything so don't quote me on this but I'm pretty sure if you empty it and give it a good rinse with RODI water you should be fine
Its in Orlando Florida, Super far from me but its worth the few hours to drive there. I visit every few months just to stock up! :) I have a link to their website in the video description. BTW they are EXPENSIVE but its worth it, their fish are almost always healthy and they dip everything!
Not really any fish or corals that would thrive in that. Plus the parameters would fluctuate heaps. 10 gallon is the smallest in my opinion but i reckon 15 gallon is better for reef fish and clownfish, firefish and some small gobies would be perfect in it
Luis Cruz 20 gallons are easy to do, I’ve had one in the past, use an aqua clear 50 with chemipure blue and seachem matrix and just take it slow you will be fine!
How much work does a 10 gallon take? I need a little more clarification before I can give a proper response. In general in a nano reef your going to need to test the water more often and keep up on the ammonia and watch how much you feed the fish and stuff, but if your taking it slow it doesn’t take a lot of work at all really. A water change every week, and feeding every other day, and you should be pretty well off as long as you keep your fish stock low and keep a decent clean up crew :) feel free to ask more questions and I’ll get back to you soon! Thanks for watching!
wow, I didnt expect a reply from a video made months ago lol, youare awesome! Well I have a spare 29g hospital tank because I have a bunch of FW tanks. Im thinking of converting the 29g to a SW. Just the absolute bare minimum. I just want azure damsels actually lol. ---- how many azure damsels can fit a 29g?
vener use thanks! I try to reply to all my comments but life has its way of keeping me busy! But I honestly wish I could talk face to face with each of my viewers because your views and your questions mean so much to me! You taking your time to watch my videos is more than I could ever ask for! But to get to your question, if you wanted to go bare minimum, and use just plain azure damsels and some live rock and some aragonite sand you could totally do it with just RO water, the DI part of filtration is really just for corals, and damsels in general are very hardy. Think of them like the cichlids of the reef haha but what I can tell you is that damsels get BIG and because of that I would recommend no more than like 5-10 damsels in a 29 gallon, cuz they will start out small, and a year down the road they will all be 2 or 3 inches long and they will be killers so other people won’t want to take them off your hands, I actually had a damsel 29 gallon biocube and I used to do water changes every 4 months with distilled water and instant ocean, and I would just feed them every other day and I used tap water occasionally with prime conditioner(obviously I had zero experience at that time haha) but it’s doable with damsels :) Thank you so much for watching! Hope you stick around for updates!! :)
As a possible new reefer would you recommend skipping the nano ... I don’t want to get discourage if a smaller tank will require more effort and knowledge
TXRED2000 saltwater is so easy. If you are afraid of mistakes then just do your weekly water changes of 10%. The reason why all these other products exist (skimmers, dosing pumps, controllers, reactors etc) is because people are LAZY AS FUCK. Everything can be done with water changes. But when you have a 300 gallon tank it’s much easier to just run an algae scrubber and skimmer and just dose rather than do a 30 gal water change weekly
You call that a budget tank? That's insane! I put together a 5 gallon nano and I've spent maybe $80 on everything including live rock and corals. You can make a tank WAAAAYY cheaper than that. Look for free stuff and look for deals.
I have a question regarding the sand and the salt water. For the sand, can i use the sand from the beach? And from the salt water, can i use the salt water also from the beach or by mixing de-mineralised water with salt for cooking? Thanks mate for ur help. Really looking forward to start my first aquarium 😀.
So for sand, you can use beach sand, HOWEVER it needs to be cleaned VERY thoroughly, beach sand usually has minerals, sun screen, and a load of bacteria on it. So what I would do is look up how to purify it, I’m sure there’s some website or post about how to do it but it’ll probably require some small amount of bleach and stirring or soaking the sand for multiple days. If you take water from the beach you will want to go about 50-60 feet from the shore at least to get pure water, and any water from the beach should be tested thoroughly and make sure to filter the water from the beach using some carbon and stuff. I’ve never done it so I’m not entirely sure how it’s done, but I use a RODI Buddie from Aquatic life and it only cost me about 89-129 bucks depending when it’s on sale and stuff, makes about a gallon an hour so when I go to work I just leave it filling a 5 gallon bucket and when I get back it’s usually overflowed about a gallon (I leave it on my back porch so it won’t overfill in my home) or you could just fill up water while eating dinner or something. But the RODI buddy is a cheap RODI unit that would be suitable for anything 25 gallon or less and it’s cheap :)
Everything you said is about what I'm going with on a nuvo 25 all in all about 2600 lol but you only live once. Nice vid so you think matrix over purigen
RO system from home depot, 20 gallon storage tank, 14 gal water 6 gal air, (not an open air container), permeate pump - fills in under 2 hours - $350. Why go BRS just so they can slap their sticker on APECs RO System?
ShowMeDaCarFax 56 depends what your going after, I am the “nano reef” Freak after all 😉 either way a 20 gallon long or a nuvo fusion 10 are both great tanks, had them both in the past actually and I will say the 20 has considerably more evaporation
I have a list of stuff here adding up to $375; here it is: - Nuvo Nano 10 - 10lbs of dry rock - 10lbs of dry sand - Ecotech XR15 - Aqueon 50w - Matrix - Hydor Nano skimmer - Chemi Pure Blue I already have a test kit, hydrometer, digital thermometer, RO unit, and a few other doses and random things from a venture i did - and failed, into marine aquariums a few years ago. Does this look good?
Hypebeast all looks good EXCEPT the hydor nano skimmer is WAY to big for the NUVO 10. For reference I had the hydor nano skimmer and it wouldn't even fit in my NUVO 25. The only way you'll be able to fit it is if you remove the lid and run the skimmer in the actual display of the aquarium :) honestly you don't need a skimmer in a 10 gallon if you do weekly water changes. I keep montipora fine with weekly water changes and chemipure blue :)
You should be clear in that Nano reefs ARE NOT FOR BEGINNERS. I know that's not necessarily what you are saying in this video, this seems to be for those who want to get into nano reefs, but in my mind those are two different things... you should really start as big as you can afford; bad things happen really fast in Nano tanks, so going bigger allows a bit of wiggle room if you forget a water change/ water quality test, etc...
Josh H I am the “nano reef” Freak tho haha and I believe the opposite. Nano reefs are much easier to take care of in my mind, if something goes wrong in them you can fix it much quicker. In a large tank if something goes wrong you will need to change a lot more water and keep up on a lot more filter media. But either way depending on how you look at it either a nano or large reef can be easy, just depends if you keep up on your water test and want a small aquarium where you can quickly fix issues or a large system where issues pop up less but require more work to fix. Either way both routes can be successful! :)
Josh H I started with a 14 gallon biocube and used the extra money I had to upgrade my filtration to the max and everything has been going really well actually
Nano Reef Freak i understand, but i still firmly believe that nano tanks will crash faster, and are much harder for a newbie (who hasnt done all of the research and doesnt keep up on parameters, upkeep) to keep than a larger tank. You are welcome to disagree, but i started with a 12g, then 120, then a 180, and i had to interject and keep a much closer eye on the 12g. Isnt the general consensus of the hobby still to go as big as possible for my points exactly?
R R im not saying nanoreefs are impossible to keep at all, just that bad things will happen much quicker in a small volume of water, so there is a much smaller margin for newbie errors
FMe do you only talk about stuff that you obviously get some sort of kick back on. I mean seriously there are other products that are as good if not better than the ones you have talked about.
Good stuff, bud. My question now is, what is Chemipure and Aragonite. What do they do, when do I and them? Also, do I need a water tester? Thanks!
EDKsurly so chemipure blue is an amazing filter media! It's basically the golden snitch of reefing, it will filter out just about everything like phosphates, larger impurities, and even medications, it has to be wet at all times, and it last about 5-6 months in a 10 gallon tank so it's great for nano reefs! You'll probably see something called ROWA at the fish store too, this is somewhat like chemipure except rowa only filters out phosphates. Rowa is also called granular ferric oxide, I run rowa and chemipure in my reef cuz I have one sps. I totally forgot about a water test kit gosh I'm such a goof! So I never used test kits for the longest time, and I always had problems keeping coral, then I invested in a API test kit, you can pick up the master saltwater one on amazon for about 20 USD. And then I discovered my alk was swinging from 8-12 when I was dosing about every other day! So no wonder my corals were having a rough time! So a test kit is a must for me, I test every 3 days regardless, even though I know the tanks fine I have to know how it's doing. You'll probably want a tester for dkh and calcium too which is sold separately by API. Now here's the exception, IF you do NOT dose anything, and you do a water change EVERY week with the same salt, then you will never need to test because you'll do water changes before anything gets bad enough to see on a tester. I do both just to be safe. Also you'll need a salt measuring device I forgot about that too! Get one of those refractometers on amazon for about 20-30 usd, way way way more accurate then the silly hydrometer I use. :)
EDKsurly oh and aragonite is a type of sand, it's made from crushed coral, they harvest the dead coral skeletons in the ocean, crush them into tiny pieces, and then use it as substrate, the good thing is that the coral skeletons leach pH buffer into the water for about 2 years which keeps your pH at a steady 8.0 which is perfect for corals and fish. My tanks two years old and I've never dosed a pH buffer but now my pH is slowly starting to come back down to 7.8 and soon I'll have to invest in pH buffers which is a bit tedious.
EDKsurly also don't run chemipure/rowa for the first month of your aquariums cycle, because the first month of the aquariums life it just needs to populate the biological media, so just run sponge and seachem matrix, after the first month you can add in the chemipure and/or rowa and then it will remove all the inorganic solids and phosphates and everything else before you add in fishes. I found if I don't use chemipure blue and rowa my tank can get a little dirty in a week cuz I feed heavily every single day, my little pigs(Darwin clowns) are hungry 24/7!
dude. Im a goofyball. I thought the Radion light bracket was the cost of the actual like. haha. But know that I'm thinking about it, they are pretty sweet. If I can skip the stand(use something I already have) the RX15 is in the budget.
EDKsurly i agree! They are expensive as hell but they are the best of the best!!! I built my stand out of 4 2x4s and one small sheet of left over half inch water resistant plywood that I had in my shed. Cost me a total of like 10-20 bucks and I spray painted it all black! :)
My first tank is cycling as I text this. I started out with a 16 gallon tank on sale at a local Petco. Tank, and a real wooden stand for 42.00 🤣 It even came with a hood and light. I am running a canister filter that was free. All parameters are Spot on. The live sand and salt made the tank free 😂
Glad to hear you got your aquarium setup! :) Let me know how it goes!
This is so helpful! Thank you! And thank you for including links! Will check out your other videos
What do you think about the Fluval marine nano led?
What do you think of the Red Sea Max E170 setup? Or do you think I should go another route with the price.
how many fish & invertebrates can you have in a 20 gallon fish tank?
Long time planted tank keeper who has always been intimidated by saltwater, but watching videos makes it seem like a 10 gallon nano reef would be very doable these days. Thank you!
Can someone list the tank, 28-30gallon and best light to support corals. Also, 28-30 gallon, how many and what fish would u stock?
Hi John, thanks for watching! I would suggest checking out NUVO's 30 gallon all in one(AIO) aquarium unit: www.marinedepot.com/nuvo-fusion-30l-pro-aio-30-gallon-aquarium-bundle-innovative-marine?gclid=CjwKCAjwoc_8BRAcEiwAzJevtTYhex72F5-M4IA1DBO5EitzHMEueM79Q7BA1Xx_FYU1R_hdWy_ERxoC5IMQAvD_BwE&
A kessil A160 would be a great light, i have one on my 25 gallon: www.marinedepot.com/kessil-a160we-tuna-blue-led-light
But you may want to opt for two kessil A80 lights if you're just going to stock lower light corals such as leather corals. Using two lights will provide better coverage with fewer shadows.
I would say 2-5 fish would be ideal to keep the maintenance down.
Maybe two clownfish, a blenny of some sort when the tank gets established, and a goby or two such as a clown goby or neon cleaner goby. I have had them all together before and they are great tank mates.
Thanks for watching!
Thank u!!!!!
Fabulous help! So appreciate. While I sound like a rookie, actually not. Just haven’t kept up. From 2001 to 2010, I had 75 gallon which evolved to no filtration. I got system to support itself between live rock and sand. Just did water changes for over a year. Life’s challenges drew my attention to other matters and it got out of my hands. So, I’ve enjoyed beautiful sea creatures but limited corals. I want to start a contained nano set up with adequate lighting to support beautiful corals. And yes, clown, blennie are perfect. Thank u so much for responding. So helpful.
Loved this video, there was a lot of great information.
I really liked that you put lists for an Ultimate Reef Tank, Mediocre Reef Tank, and Cheapo Reef Tank
AI Prime light, would not only be a better middle of the road light price wise but you can't agrue its quality for color and health of one's corals.
Mohamad Osman yea AI has come a long way with their leds. They are top notch now! I would definitely recommend them! Thanks for watching!
I’m thinking of getting the nuvo 14 Peninsula with a ai prime hd. Pair of clowns and few corals would you recommend a skimmer?
$20 for that big frogspawn 1:30 man I wish....
what's the best all in one 40 or 50 gallon to get if im new to the hobby??
i just got biorb halo 4 gal i know its very small but im just gonna put some inverts and anemone on it is it gonna work also is it possible to have corals in there..?
apdroid geek yes it’s very possible, but very challenging. What I would recommend is to first cycle the tank for a month and make sure you put some fish food on day one to get the nitrogen cycle started with ammonia, then practice maintaining salinity. If you have to put 4 oz of water in a small tank everyday to maintain a 1.024-10.26 salinity then that’s what you will have to do to take care of corals. In that small of a tank your two most important tools will be a refractometer, that’s those super cool things that you put a drop of saltwater on and it tells you the salinity exactly, and a auto top off, I know there are some good ones out there, the ATK from Neptune is the best and can be used with just the optical sensors to make it smaller, and there is another brand I forget the name of that makes one for like 130-140 that is just a single optical eye. But the auto top off would essentially make evaporation null, making your salinity constant, making your tank stable! :)
apdroid geek send me a video on Instagram @reeflife and I’ll check it out!
Where is that at , that's a amazing assortment of large colonys of coral.
Justin Johnston looks like a store I frequent. If I'm not mistaken it's Top Shelf Aquatics in Orlando.
Anyone, get yourself an aquaknight for lighting. One of the best budget lights for up to 20 gallons. It can grow pretty much anything. And it got more than just blue and white
This is exactly what I was looking for, only because what you said about the 21LED lights, lol. I have been looking at them online and it's good to have reassurance that they will do well.
Southern Fishing Addiction Hey thanks for tuning in!! The 21 led lights definitely do very well!! Montiporas grow at a steady rate and so does other lps like acans and even anemones! The 21 led units do get very hot physically in temperature but the light unit itself has never been hindered by the heat. They use bridgelux leds I believe which are a reputable led :) they aren't a kessil that's for sure but they will get the job done for a fraction of the price!! Thanks for watching leave a like! Let me know if you want me to make a video about something and I'll hop right on it!
Thought I recognized the store... Top Shelf Aquatics is my favorite store! :)
Now I have a question. 21LED also has a BlueHeavy ReefBar. Which of the two do you think would give the best coral growth and color?
Here's the blue heavy
www.ebay.com/itm/LED-Aquarium-Light-Bar-BLUE-HEAVY-ReefBar-Pro-3W-LEDs-Bridgelux-Salt-Water-Reef-/282229803785?var=&hash=item41b6350b09:m:mBip8GczNsYlU597vT7Kwog
Southern Fishing Addiction so in my opinion I would not buy the blue heavy bar unless you can see it in person, because my reef, bar the standard reef bar pro, has a very nice color that's half white and half blue and really makes the corals look good. I do prefer a little more blue than the standard reef bar pro but what I would suggest is to invest in the SUNSETTER module by 21led and use regular reef bar pro units and fine tune the white leds down to about 70 percent and the blues at 100 and this should give you the same affect as the heavy blues but you can control it whenever you wish. Blue light improves coral COLOR and white light improves coral GROWTH, so corals will grow faster in white light with less color and will grow slower in blue light but will contain more color so it's really up to you in the end but I suggest regular reef bar pros with the sunsetter :) thanks for watching!
Nano Reef Freak I ordered the 50/50 kit with dimmer and everything. I installed it today and I love it!
That's great!! So glad to hear!! Let me know if you make a video about it I'd love to see it!! :) bet it's gonna be a great tank!!
Question: So I have a tank I used for two different times only for freshwater fish and freshwater live plants. I'm thinking of starting a saltwater tank, could I use that tank or could it be "contaminated" by freshwater??? Its only 3.7 gallons so its seriously tiny but I don't want my tank to be to big (for trying out coral only I mean)
Hannah H. I'm not an experienced reefer or anything so don't quote me on this but I'm pretty sure if you empty it and give it a good rinse with RODI water you should be fine
where is that store located at? Looks like they have some awesome corals there
Its in Orlando Florida, Super far from me but its worth the few hours to drive there. I visit every few months just to stock up! :) I have a link to their website in the video description. BTW they are EXPENSIVE but its worth it, their fish are almost always healthy and they dip everything!
Aqueoun actually have pretty reliable heaters once you get it set to desired temp. If it works, work it😎
kraykraytaetae13 agreed! I have two aqueon heaters now and so far so good!
Thank's for all of you good information! I did my tank slowly and you really never finish, corals grow along the way and things change.
finpafine so true! You can never have enough coral!! :) thanks for tuning in! Leave a like and let me know what you want to see on the channel next!
is it possible to do something smaller like a 5gallon
Not really any fish or corals that would thrive in that. Plus the parameters would fluctuate heaps. 10 gallon is the smallest in my opinion but i reckon 15 gallon is better for reef fish and clownfish, firefish and some small gobies would be perfect in it
J Brown thank you i do have 10,g20g but I'm i little afraid cuz it can be expensive if i where to mess up
Luis Cruz 20 gallons are easy to do, I’ve had one in the past, use an aqua clear 50 with chemipure blue and seachem matrix and just take it slow you will be fine!
Would you recommend a nuvo fusion 10 or a nuvo fusion 20
Chris R. Both are great tanks! Whatever works best for your budget!
tank- $10, skimmer $80-300, dry rock $8lb ($120), light $80-$400, filter $30-$300,
Like how much work does it take for a cheapo reefer?
How much work does a 10 gallon take? I need a little more clarification before I can give a proper response. In general in a nano reef your going to need to test the water more often and keep up on the ammonia and watch how much you feed the fish and stuff, but if your taking it slow it doesn’t take a lot of work at all really. A water change every week, and feeding every other day, and you should be pretty well off as long as you keep your fish stock low and keep a decent clean up crew :) feel free to ask more questions and I’ll get back to you soon! Thanks for watching!
wow, I didnt expect a reply from a video made months ago lol, youare awesome! Well I have a spare 29g hospital tank because I have a bunch of FW tanks. Im thinking of converting the 29g to a SW.
Just the absolute bare minimum. I just want azure damsels actually lol. ---- how many azure damsels can fit a 29g?
vener use thanks! I try to reply to all my comments but life has its way of keeping me busy! But I honestly wish I could talk face to face with each of my viewers because your views and your questions mean so much to me! You taking your time to watch my videos is more than I could ever ask for!
But to get to your question, if you wanted to go bare minimum, and use just plain azure damsels and some live rock and some aragonite sand you could totally do it with just RO water, the DI part of filtration is really just for corals, and damsels in general are very hardy. Think of them like the cichlids of the reef haha but what I can tell you is that damsels get BIG and because of that I would recommend no more than like 5-10 damsels in a 29 gallon, cuz they will start out small, and a year down the road they will all be 2 or 3 inches long and they will be killers so other people won’t want to take them off your hands, I actually had a damsel 29 gallon biocube and I used to do water changes every 4 months with distilled water and instant ocean, and I would just feed them every other day and I used tap water occasionally with prime conditioner(obviously I had zero experience at that time haha) but it’s doable with damsels :)
Thank you so much for watching! Hope you stick around for updates!! :)
As a possible new reefer would you recommend skipping the nano ... I don’t want to get discourage if a smaller tank will require more effort and knowledge
TXRED2000 saltwater is so easy. If you are afraid of mistakes then just do your weekly water changes of 10%. The reason why all these other products exist (skimmers, dosing pumps, controllers, reactors etc) is because people are LAZY AS FUCK. Everything can be done with water changes. But when you have a 300 gallon tank it’s much easier to just run an algae scrubber and skimmer and just dose rather than do a 30 gal water change weekly
Larger tanks are easier because it is harder to crash them
Great information
m nieves thanks Nieves!!! I appreciate your view! If I missed anything just let me know! :)
Some cool information😉
Prices would've been great! Even ballpark figures. I don't even know what your definition of cheap is..
You call that a budget tank? That's insane! I put together a 5 gallon nano and I've spent maybe $80 on everything including live rock and corals. You can make a tank WAAAAYY cheaper than that. Look for free stuff and look for deals.
Nathan Bonnell lol some people don’t wanna look for deals dumb ass
Skimmers are key.
Great video
Ronney D thanks so much!
I have a question regarding the sand and the salt water.
For the sand, can i use the sand from the beach? And from the salt water, can i use the salt water also from the beach or by mixing de-mineralised water with salt for cooking?
Thanks mate for ur help. Really looking forward to start my first aquarium 😀.
So for sand, you can use beach sand, HOWEVER it needs to be cleaned VERY thoroughly, beach sand usually has minerals, sun screen, and a load of bacteria on it. So what I would do is look up how to purify it, I’m sure there’s some website or post about how to do it but it’ll probably require some small amount of bleach and stirring or soaking the sand for multiple days. If you take water from the beach you will want to go about 50-60 feet from the shore at least to get pure water, and any water from the beach should be tested thoroughly and make sure to filter the water from the beach using some carbon and stuff. I’ve never done it so I’m not entirely sure how it’s done, but I use a RODI Buddie from Aquatic life and it only cost me about 89-129 bucks depending when it’s on sale and stuff, makes about a gallon an hour so when I go to work I just leave it filling a 5 gallon bucket and when I get back it’s usually overflowed about a gallon (I leave it on my back porch so it won’t overfill in my home) or you could just fill up water while eating dinner or something. But the RODI buddy is a cheap RODI unit that would be suitable for anything 25 gallon or less and it’s cheap :)
Everything you said is about what I'm going with on a nuvo 25 all in all about 2600 lol but you only live once. Nice vid so you think matrix over purigen
RO system from home depot, 20 gallon storage tank, 14 gal water 6 gal air, (not an open air container), permeate pump - fills in under 2 hours - $350. Why go BRS just so they can slap their sticker on APECs RO System?
You can afford a Radion but not better sand. Lol😂
I hate when people film with the blue light on Cannot tell if the tank looks good or not please use the regular daytime lighting thank you
why go for a 10, when a 20 gallon long is nearly the same price?
ShowMeDaCarFax 56 depends what your going after, I am the “nano reef” Freak after all 😉 either way a 20 gallon long or a nuvo fusion 10 are both great tanks, had them both in the past actually and I will say the 20 has considerably more evaporation
I have a list of stuff here adding up to $375; here it is:
- Nuvo Nano 10
- 10lbs of dry rock
- 10lbs of dry sand
- Ecotech XR15
- Aqueon 50w
- Matrix
- Hydor Nano skimmer
- Chemi Pure Blue
I already have a test kit, hydrometer, digital thermometer, RO unit, and a few other doses and random things from a venture i did - and failed, into marine aquariums a few years ago.
Does this look good?
Hypebeast all looks good EXCEPT the hydor nano skimmer is WAY to big for the NUVO 10. For reference I had the hydor nano skimmer and it wouldn't even fit in my NUVO 25. The only way you'll be able to fit it is if you remove the lid and run the skimmer in the actual display of the aquarium :) honestly you don't need a skimmer in a 10 gallon if you do weekly water changes. I keep montipora fine with weekly water changes and chemipure blue :)
The XR15 will do you wonders tho
Hypebeast the XR15 is also 399.99 and the arm is 74.99 so you might have a little bit more than 375 there haha
Imagine not having an ato on an ultimate reef tank
Top Shelf Aquatics?
My man haha! They have an excellent store and this is indeed where I shot the video!
Nano Reef Freak They are Great guys. Been there numerous times. I'm in Tampa and when I'm back in Orlando I always stop by.
If we don’t go with a radio we ain’t crazy we just don’t want to spend that much money on it
really your RO systems are that slow wow! mine does 200 gallons per day easily. i’ve got a 400 gallon storage tank.
You should be clear in that Nano reefs ARE NOT FOR BEGINNERS.
I know that's not necessarily what you are saying in this video,
this seems to be for those who want to get into nano reefs,
but in my mind those are two different things...
you should really start as big as you can afford; bad things happen
really fast in Nano tanks, so going bigger allows a bit of wiggle room if
you forget a water change/ water quality test, etc...
Josh H I am the “nano reef” Freak tho haha and I believe the opposite. Nano reefs are much easier to take care of in my mind, if something goes wrong in them you can fix it much quicker. In a large tank if something goes wrong you will need to change a lot more water and keep up on a lot more filter media. But either way depending on how you look at it either a nano or large reef can be easy, just depends if you keep up on your water test and want a small aquarium where you can quickly fix issues or a large system where issues pop up less but require more work to fix. Either way both routes can be successful! :)
Josh H I started with a 14 gallon biocube and used the extra money I had to upgrade my filtration to the max and everything has been going really well actually
Nano Reef Freak i understand, but i still firmly believe that nano tanks will crash faster, and are much harder for a newbie (who hasnt done all of the research and doesnt keep up on parameters, upkeep) to keep than a larger tank.
You are welcome to disagree, but i started with a 12g, then 120, then a 180, and i had to interject and keep a much closer eye on the 12g.
Isnt the general consensus of the hobby still to go as big as possible for my points exactly?
R R im not saying nanoreefs are impossible to keep at all, just that bad things will happen much quicker in a small volume of water, so there is a much smaller margin for newbie errors
@@nanoreeffreak5064 nano will crash faster so you are wrong.
FMe do you only talk about stuff that you obviously get some sort of kick back on. I mean seriously there are other products that are as good if not better than the ones you have talked about.