First Reef Tank

[Triggerfish31]

My Picasso Triggerfish is doing great in my 75 gallon tank. This weekend I am going to spend about an hour cleaning all the algae off the glass and getting the tank back into shape. Since Christmas is coming up fast I had one quick question. I am looking to really start this time on a reef tank. I am not looking to get another 75 but would like to get a smaller tank but not too small. What size tank could I possibly use? This tank would be for soft corals.

 

Aaron

[Brian Ward]

My Picasso Triggerfish is doing great in my 75 gallon tank. This weekend I am going to spend about an hour cleaning all the algae off the glass and getting the tank back into shape. Since Christmas is coming up fast I had one quick question. I am looking to really start this time on a reef tank. I am not looking to get another 75 but would like to get a smaller tank but not too small. What size tank could I possibly use? This tank would be for soft corals.

 

Aaron

 

It mostly depends on what fish you would like to keep. If you want tangs, don't go smaller than a 4' long tank. If you only want a few small fish then you can go as small as you want - but water parameters are harder to balance in a small tank. BioCubes and NanoCubes are popular, as are the CadLights (www.cadlights.com). If you want to keep an anemone you will need strong lighting - T5 or MH. I have a BC29, look at my sig to see the stocking. If you're up for a little extra work, going with a 40L or something along those lines, drilling or adding overflows and customizing everything is a good solution. Also take a look at a couple of the smaller reef tanks that are currently for sale from club members.

~Brian

[schulzjp]

I really like the 40 breeder for a reef.

[lanman]

My Picasso Triggerfish is doing great in my 75 gallon tank. This weekend I am going to spend about an hour cleaning all the algae off the glass and getting the tank back into shape. Since Christmas is coming up fast I had one quick question. I am looking to really start this time on a reef tank. I am not looking to get another 75 but would like to get a smaller tank but not too small. What size tank could I possibly use? This tank would be for soft corals.

 

Aaron

 

I recommend a reef-ready 58-gallon tank. 18" front-back and 3 feet wide. I recommend against any tank that is only 12" front-back; you just don't have the aquascaping options. If you have to keep it smaller - perhaps a 40-gallon breeder, although over time some of your softies will be happy to grow quite tall if you don't prune them.

 

bob

[zoozilla]

40 Breeder would be adequate...

[treesprite]

I totally agree on the narrow 12" tanks... I was using one until a couple months (?) ago and it totally sucked. Now I have 18" and have almost as much space behind the rock as in front of the rock, so I can look in the ends like I'm looking into seperate tanks.

[davelin315]

Hi Aaron, before making any recommendation, what is your experience in the hobby? If you are experienced with keeping marine aquariums, you know that the smaller the aquarium, the larger the fluctuations in water quality and therefore the harder it is to maintain. The other part of the consideration is how much do you want to spend? I have kept anything from a 2.5 gallon tank that I had to do water changes on all of the time, closer to 3 to 4 times a week changing a small cup of water out, to my current 300. The smaller the volume of water, the faster things will get out of whack.

 

As far as money, your choice of softies does not necessarily save you a ton of money on light choices. Depending on the size of the aquarium, some of the PC or T5 hoods will cost the same as a small MH retrofit, so you could go with just about anything.

 

Ideally, how large a system do you want to have, and also, how set in stone are you that you won't go beyond softies in the future? I am a true believer that you should get the biggest tank you possibly can right away as the disease of big tank envy is one that runs rampant throughout the reefkeeping world and there is absolutely no known cure to this disease with the exception of significant others putting their foot down and the ability of your home to support a tank... although sometimes this disease has been known to circumvent the latter.