New tank choices

[Greg31]

I can get a used 28g nano cube on craigslist for $200 or use a 29g I have available and buy a new diy sump locally for $60. I am trying to set up the easiest possible set up for my son who is only 2 years old. Lowest maintenence possible as well.

I would only have some clowns, an anemone and a few other corals.

[Mark Bianco]

Is the nano just the tank and stand, or is it an all in one unit? I can not speak for all of the AIO units, but I can give you my views on the RedSea Max 130D. I had the tank for about a year and a half and something was always going bad. I think I went thru 3 or 4 circulation pumps several fans and the skimmer was not worth its weight in trash. That being said some people have had great luck with them, but if you read most of thier posts alot of them had bought and installed modifactions to the tanks either RSM or other AIO manufactors Guess you will have to weigh the bennifits. Now if its just a fish only and maybe a few corals like mushrooms perhaps a AIO would be in order.

Mark

[BlindZide]

I am running a 30g sumpless system. I have 3 fish and 7 corals in it along with my 30lbs of LR. Work involved is change filter media weekly, change water weekly, watch water parameters like a hawk (smaller systems can crash faster to due parameters being off) and keep tank glass clear with a mag float. Other than that its super simple if you ask me. I would go with the 29g myself. My buddy has a cube and is going to take my 30g when my 75g is done cycling because he wants a longer tank for the fish to swim in.

[Greg31]

Basically I want to try to minimize water changes. I do them all the time in freshwater but saltwater is a pain IMO. If I want to minimize water changes a sump would be best i guess right?

[BlindZide]

Not a sump, but a skimmer would reduce the amount of water changes you would have to do. Get a nice HoB one if you dont have a sump like a Reef Octopus BH1000.

[johnc99]

Originally Posted by Greg31

Basically I want to try to minimize water changes. I do them all the time in freshwater but saltwater is a pain IMO. If I want to minimize water changes a sump would be best i guess right?

A sump won't reduce the frequency of water changes. It gives you more total water volume and a larger volume is more resistant to change. Consider, your 29G with your sump is probably close to the total volume in my 40B sumpless. I still do water changes every 2 weeks - sometimes every week.

IMO water changes in a SW system are just as easy as in a FW system - you just need a bit more planning. For me the process starts the night before when I fill 2 buckets with RO/DI water, add salt, and add a powerhead to each bucket to mix the salt. For someone who is unfamiliar with SW I recommend checking the salinity in the buckets using a refractometer and comparing with the salinity in your system. Personally I usually only check the salinity for a couple of water changes when I get a new bucket of salt. The next evening I shut off everything, clean the skimmer cup, clean off the salt creep, siphon two buckets of water, pump in the new water, and turn everything back on. After that it's cleaning the buckets and powerheads ready for next time.

Every 2nd water change I change out the GFO from the reactor.

For me I can do a 20% water change is about an hour - not including the time the night before to make the SW.

When I had a FW system cleaning the canister filter and UV sterilizer every 3rd water change took a couple of hours. When I wasn't cleaning the filter, it would still take about 45 minutes to an hour to really siphon the crud out the gravel, trim plants, scrub algae etc.

So for me a SW change is not any more difficult than what I experienced with FW.

[bqq100]

Couple of things I do to help cut down on the time spent on water changes:

I no longer worry too much about siphoning up detritus during water changes (maybe siphon the sand a little bit every 2 or 3 wafer changes). Instead once or twice a week I set my mp10 to full blast, setup a fine mesh fish net in front of it, and turkey baste everything. The stirs everything into the water and much of it gets blown right into the fish net.

The other thing I did is setup my ATO system to have a switch to toggle between fresh and saltwater. When I do water changes I can slowly siphon water into a bucket while the ATO takes care of refilling to the right level with saltwater. Meanwhile I can do other things as long as I don't let the bucket overflow. I want to get a float valve installed on one of my buckets so it will stop siphoning water when the bucket is full.

[Greg31]

Nice advice all. Yeah my 150g freshwater set up takes about 1 hour to do water changes on but all I do it flip the switch on my python, I do no spot cleaning.

When I had my old SW tank the only thing that seemed like "work" was the water changes. Having to measure salt, pour in tank without making a mess or disturbing everything in tank. Other then that salt water was a breeze. Oh yeah, and refilling the tank like every other day, that got really old.

[BlindZide]

I mean really you could make this hobby effortless by automating everything from water changes, to top offs, and so forth. If that is what you want to do then research and the DIY section is where I would head. I myself LOVE to fiddle in my tanks. My fish know when its feeding time and come to where ever my syringe is. It's just me and being interactive with my hobby and I thoroughly enjoy it.