Bi-Weekly Discussion of the Week: Are Nano's a good way to get started in this hobby? - Page 3

Joel · 08-05-2003, 10:37 AM

IMO nanos should be left to people who have no desire for fish at all, just a mini coral tank. However as I previously stated most people just starting out want fish, A LOT OF FISH. That alone should be reason enough to discourage most people from starting out with a nano.

QuAcKeR · 08-05-2003, 02:27 PM

I'm about 4 weeks into my first tank, a 10g. Corals are what got me interested in SW tanks. While the fish are nice and colorful, I'm more concerned with successfully keeping some nice corals (though I do keep looking at the pics of clams you folks keep posting. Must.. not... look!). I also don't currently have the space for a larger tank.

Geoff · 08-05-2003, 05:05 PM

unfortunately i think you may be in the minority. keeping coral in a nano is what they do really well. clams would be tough only due to their lighting requirements.

G~

Geoff · 08-05-2003, 10:27 PM

ok, so lets move this into another direction. we think that fish are not the best inhabitants for a nano, so what are?
for a 20g?
for a 10g?
for a 5g or smaller?

this is wide open here, what do you all think.

G~

Joel · 08-05-2003, 10:29 PM

water, sand, a halide pendant, and a huge clam oughta just about take care of a 10 gal. Oh yeah and a turbo snail.

08-06-2003, 12:42 AM

20 gal great nano for sps tank...
10 gal great mushroom zoanthid tank
5 gal xenia pond

latazyo · 08-06-2003, 01:33 PM

I am in favor of nanos on the issue, I personally began in this hobby 8 months ago with two 10g and one 5.5g nanos, I am in the process of turning them all into one 40BR tank, and I have additional plans of hopeully getting into a 125 within a few years...

I did not find keeping nanos difficult at all, maybe I just lucked out with water chem, etc, but I am finding that most organisms that can be kept in such a small tank are hardier than people say

I think that for someone new to the hobby they will better get a sense for if they are truly interested in it...I would have hated to go out and buy a 125g tank, skimmer, 300# of LR, etc etc etc (as you all know) and then found out it was less interesting/more work than I had planned and come to the realisation that I couldn't do it anymore

latazyo · 08-06-2003, 01:42 PM

I have frogspawn, gsp, monti dig, monti cap, encrusting gorg, purple gorg, yellow gorg, shrooms, zoos, colt leather, cabbage leather and yellow watchman goby in one of my ten g

gsp, xenia, zoos, shrooms, pair of clownfish in my other

rogerthmyers · 08-06-2003, 01:48 PM

If I knew what I know now, WOW, I could've saved so much money, you can make or build alot of the things in a big set-up, the stand, canopy, alot of the filtration, more base rock thank live rock, Nano reefs to me are interesting but their only a stepping stool to where most of us have eventually ended up. Upgrading to a biger tank and starting all over again as far as thing we had to get for the bigger system to operate.
To me Nano's are a good place to start, for the knowledge but a bad place to start $ wise......Every day I look at my tank and wonder all the changes I've made in the last five years, alot, well a high majority of those wouldn't have been possible with a Nano.

kram138 · 08-06-2003, 11:34 PM

This is my 2 cents. I think there are two kinds of potential aquariasts out there.

1. The people who say they want a reef tank to be a docoration in their homes. They want it set up and to run pretty much maintenance free except for feeding. They will pay a service or maybe the kid at the LFS to come by and do water changes.

2. The people who want to keep a reef tank as hobby. They want to understand water chemistry and read everything they can about making life better for the organisms they keep. They want to build and experiment with new types of filtration and lighting. They love the hobby for what it is.

Person number 1, not a good candidate for starting off with a nano. Person number 2, which includes myself and I would imagine everybody reading this post, good candidate for starting with a nano.

Just my opinion.

SouthernReefer · 08-10-2003, 02:10 PM

nano-reefs in small tanks, imo, i would leave to more experienced reefkeeper. the rapidly changing eviroment of the tank usually leads to some sort of never ending problems for the novice reefkeeper. i believe a larger tank is better because it offer a more stable enviroment for them to learn from.
i think now, reef size discriptions should be based upon mass of the live rock, and not the size of the tank.