nano unstablitly?

[BCreefmaker]

why is it that everyone says that nano's a poor choice for beginers because it hard to keep the water quality? is this true? i thought with a good top off system in place and regular water changes they stay quite stable and the water pram stay quite stable? what exactly are they talking about? i know the other reasons are sort of are good, but i doubt i will be neglecting my tank too much because of the small investment, id just rather spend 250$ on setting up a 10gallon then spend that on one light fixture and then have all then meters/test kits/ knowledge for something bigger down the road. but everything i read keep steering me back to a larger set up. isnt it possible to keep a 5-10 gallon stable for years or decades just like any other tank? or is it that most live stock althought rated a "nano" species wont live its natural life span in a tank so small? whats up with this? becaue i really want to keep a nano but all the adivce i read isnt really helping. but i assume its possible to keep a nano for a very long time, or else why would the have a thread for it any help would be great.

 

[Jordan55]

Well smaller tanks are usually harder to keep because when something happens in the tank, it can cause the parameters to rise more than in a bit tank. For example, if your clown died in a 10 gallon, it would probably cause a high spike, where as in a 100 gallon, it wouldn't do much at all. Also, with evap, and any other outside factor that can mess with parameters.

Obviously, you should treat each and every tank with the same care, but smaller tanks are may require more attention because of the smaller factors being able to cause big problems.

Usually when people get into the hobby they have little or no experience/knowledge, so they don't understand the importantance of checking things in the tank atleast once a day. That being said, starting with a bigger tank usually means less parameter problems.

 

[BCreefmaker]

well i was planning on a pretty light stock, mostly soft corals, and a few inverts, maybe a single gobie. i thought alot of the water paramter problems came from crazy people who put things like clams in a 4 gallon or just generally WAY overstock. i know the whole dilution is the silution to polution so if something dies wont something like a crarbon reactor help alot or is a fuge the only option?if all the stock did die in a especially light stocked tank wouldentm ost of the corals be fine?. i just thought having a smaller stock would keep the water parameters pretty stable and as long as i stay away from nano unfreindly speicies there really shouldent be too many problems? because even with a larger tank i was planning on testing everything alot just to get that experince.

 

[jcjstl]

My experince is that bad stuff just happens faster... i missed 2 days of top off (no auto top off) that sent my salinity sky high which killed a shrimp which spiked the ammonia which killed my fish. is a bigger tank 1 shrimp dying woul not have mattered... but my opinion is if i can handle the small tank i will have no problems with a big tank later.

 

[Pescados]

You can have the most stable tank in the world, large or small, and have something silly crash the whole tank. Smaller tanks just crash faster since there is less room for error.
Having a water top off, is great, but if you don't and get snowed in or lord forbid thrown in jail... the small tank is done for while a larger tank, depending on the days gone, could probably survive with out top off or even power for a while.
But let me tell you from experiance, I travel a lot for my job so I always have a backup care taker for my tank and the dog. I am lucky to be engaged now and have someone that I come home too that is trained on up keep of my tanks... and the dog.
Believe me, nothing is fool proof! I have been snowed in several times, due to job and have lost tanks in the process.
We had a huge snow storm 2 years back that made it hard to travel for my caretaker. While I was out on the job, I lost the small tank (25g) but the large tank (125) survived.
This will be an even more active season for me this year, and all I have is a 40g total system so I am praying that the tank does well while I am gone.
I love smaller tanks, cause it's easy on water changes, chemicals... if you use them, carbon, and... no offense to the woman, but even a woman can do the water change! And I only say that cause my girl would never... never do a water change on the 125! Big fish and heavier buckets. The only draw back is... well more fish and corals.
I love my nano, this is the new one I started.
Good luck if you start a nano, and...... BC rocks

 

[afelder]

Most of the time nano's don't have the volume to allow for inexperienced hobbiests to make mistakes. You can work around the issue by adding a sump/refugium. A good starter size in my opinion is a 16-30 gallon tank it is more forgiving than the 1-12 gallon grouping and the more water volume you have the easier it will be. The hardest to solve problem for beginners with nano tanks is heat control. The temperature will get high very quickly during the day and fall very quickly at night.


Good Luck
Ariel

 

[Pescados]

T5's and nice heater, can beat the temp control.

 

[Agu]

Ten years ago it was common opinion you couldn't keep alive a reef tank less than 55 gallons, so very few people tried.

But with the explosion of information available, improved equipment, and new products, a small tank is not that difficult to maintain long term. I have a sumpless and skimmerless ten gallon tank that is pushing 4 years old.

That said I wouldn't advocate a person new to the hobby try anything less than a 30 gallon tank, what would be a minor glitch in a 30 gallon would be a catastrophe in a smaller tank. The problem is that being new it's harder to see the subtle signs of a problem developing and you'll have less time to correct the problem.

jmo,

 

[eddie c]

i've had a 12g and 20g in the past and they were more labor intensive than my 75g i currently have running, there was always a problem with one thing or another, algae was the biggest problem which i believe was from lack of good skimming and flow, which are hard to do in a nano, due to space restrictions, heat was also an issue, and even though the water changes were small and relatively easy to do, just became a chore i hated, if i were start all over i would have just invested in the size tank i wanted all along.

 

[manse]

I started from scratch with a 12 gallon. Stick with hearty corals, crabs, and snails at first and things should go pretty easy.

I had large temp and salinity swings, power outages, and some other problems, but since I kept simple corals for the most part and only a cleanup crew, everything survived. The corals, in fact, are thriving and growing out like crazy!

 

[pitbullpooch]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8202664#post8202664 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by eddie c
i've had a 12g and 20g in the past and they were more labor intensive than my 75g i currently have running, there was always a problem with one thing or another, algae was the biggest problem which i believe was from lack of good skimming and flow, which are hard to do in a nano, due to space restrictions, heat was also an issue, and even though the water changes were small and relatively easy to do, just became a chore i hated, if i were start all over i would have just invested in the size tank i wanted all along.

its been the oposite for me with my nanos and my larger tanks along with alot of others that have both nanos and large systems. my nanos are so much easier to take care of and never have as much algae as my 120 did or any other large reef ive had. now if yours was stocked heavy then i could see algae problems or using bad water. other then that my nanos look great compared to alot of other larger tanks ive had and others ive seen. all i do on my 2.5 i have now is topoff everyday with just ro/di, do a water change and clean the glass which takes 5 minutes at the most every sat. i guess some people just have different experiences with there nanos but ive just always heard most say there nanos were easier and less work then there larger systems.

 

[saxerphoner]

I've started a 20H recently and love it... the only thing I'm having trouble with now is brown algae or diatoms (whatever you want to call it) I'm getting better lighting today and a skimmer so I think this will help. As far as levels, everything is normal (the only thing that is less than perfect are my nitrates, they are still less than 20 though) so I havn't experienced the disadvantages of smaller tanks yet I guess. Go with it... From my lack of experience it seems to be more cost conscious for now.

If anyone has some advice or comments on the brown algae, it will be gladly accepted... It doesn't really bother me but the girl thinks it's ugly!!

thanks

 

[fras]

I find params easier to keep stable on my 24G than my old 8G. I do think there's a threshold for ease of looking after a tank, too big and there's alot of rocks/sand/glass to potentially clean & lots of water to change to make any kind of difference. If my 24G gets poluted in some way I can knock out a big water change from scratch in a pretty short period of time.

 

[IndianaFish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8202249#post8202249 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Pescados

Is that a black BG or dark blue?

 

[Pescados]

Dark blue... acrylic paint from home depot. Easy to scrape off the acrylic if you decide to go another color. I think this is "denham blue".

 

[Pescados]

"If anyone has some advice or comments on the brown algae, it will be gladly accepted... It doesn't really bother me but the girl thinks it's ugly!!"


- good skimmer and water movemant!

 

[jcarnahan12]

I started with a 10g and did not experienced large swings in my salinity, before I added my auto top off. Honestly, my tank has been extremely stable ever since I started it. My addiction has grown dramatically though. If you want to check out my tank look at the 10g FrankenTank Thread. Good luck. Just remember everyone’s experience is different. But use the guys that have been around a while to assist you every step of the way. Just my 2 cents. Thanks