nano tank

[dudeofrude]

I'm thinking if buying a nano tank for my girlfriend just to keep some live coral and a few clown fish. Can anybody make any suggestions as to which tanks are good and easy to maintain? I have a 30 gal tropical tank but I've never kept marine fish before.
We quite like the bio-orb cube ones ( not sure what they are called )

 

[melosu58]

Moved to the nano tank section.

 

[Fishguy2727]

Bigger is better. And all-in-one packages can't be customized (effectively). By the biggest tank you can do right. If you can afford a 30 but can't afford adequate light and rock then you can't do it right and shouldn't get it. In general a pair of clowns needs at least a 20 gallon (stock with ocellaris or percula, don't mess with any of the others they are too big and aggressive).

What corals are you wanting?

 

[dudeofrude]

I haven't a clue.... this is just spitballing with ideas I haven't actually looked into much yet. It's just my lfs has this biorb tank on its front desk that's roughly a 2ft high by 1ft wide and it just has 2 clowns and some corals in it and it looks stunning. My gf keeps going on about it everytime we go in so I thought about getting something similar. I was hoping to keep it relatively small if I could?

 

[Jnam]

Biorbs are nice looking but hard to get any kind of light into unless you want to go with LEDs or something spotlightish...

Try looking up a picotope on google price of the tank plus 50$ in upgrades and you have a very suitable pico reef no clowns though...

10 gallons + IMO for a clown. The biocubes and aquapods are some decent AIO and there are lots of resources out there on modding them to suit your needs, nanotuners and a few other sites offer all kinds of goodies for the AIO tanks.

 

[dudeofrude]

Ok thanks jnam ill take a look. Can I keep a single clown on its own?

 

[Jnam]

clowns dont require swimming space as much as other fish. The issue is nutrient or fish poop export. 3 gallons of water is not much. Water changes will help.

 

[trackfast]

The smaller the tank; the more maintenance it will require. You really have to keep an eye on water parameters. So an "easy" tank to maintain? No such thing! lol But with a bigger tank (20G+) you could make more "mistakes" and the fish would survive. Corals would need more lighting than a FO or Fowlr tank. You can put fish in a small tank but it's cruel. IMO. You can live in a tiny room but would you want to?

 

[dudeofrude]

Ok guys thanks for the input, I'm probably going to give it a miss and just stick with my tropical tank coz if I can't do it properly then its not fair on the fish. I haven't really got the room or time to care for another large tank and it sounds like too much work to have a nano. Oh well, thanks again

 

[Fishguy2727]

It really doesn't have to be THAT big. Honestly I think if it is done right a 20 (U.S. gallons) is okay for a beginner.

 

[iDream]

look for the jbj led nanocube, i think its only in a 24g model. nice aio with leds and enough space for a clown

 

[Jnam]

Nanos can be easy and rewarding, Maintenance was a breeze on my picotope you just have to do the maintenance more often. On a 10 gallon or smaller tank you can easily do daily waterchanges in minutes to keep nutrients low. It would take me 5 mins to drain a gallon and replace a gallon of water in the pico. Nano tanks are nice AIO are some of the best IMO I made my frag tank out of a standard 10 and turned it into an AIO for frags and it could be an easier tank to maintain.

YES the more water volume the longer it can take before there is an ill effect on your inhabitants but you can easily see and reach everything in a nano.

OP I would start with a 10 gallon tank nice and small footprint and plenty of lighting options out there to suite your needs. I would check out nano-reef to see what others have done in the way of small pieces of ocean they have a lot of support for the AIO community.

 

[ChizerBunoi]

Look at it from a maintenance perspective and see what hassle it would be. If you go on vacation for more than one week, do you have someone that you can trust to take care of the fish and do regular water changes? The smaller tanks are more prone to crashes due to a lack of regular routine maintenance.

I have a 24 gallon nano cube and the only fish that I have are two clowns. I wouldn't even consider putting anything else in there with them as there isn't much room for both of them. Yes they don't need as much swimming room but are definetely a lot happier having a larger space.

Between my 90 gallon tank and 24 gallon nano cube, it takes me less time to perform maintenance on the 90 compared to the 24 gallon. I know that sounds strange but it is also true.

 

[Jnam]

Planning and husbandry I think are important, my pico stayed steady through good husbandry when it came to vacations maintenance was handled by the ATO and an established tank. Small tanks are certainly prone to crashes but crashes are usually a result of poor husbandry... JMO