Well, as a kid, I always liked to have fress water aquaruims, and was pretty good at it. Later on in life, I decided to go back to my old hobby by buying a used 75 gallon tank and stand, and making it an african chiclid tank.
When I went to the LFS, I always saw thier nano tanks there with lots of marine life. Since I don't have enough room for two tanks, I went for a nano tank.
It was explained to me that it was real easy to start up. I just bought the 10 lbs of live rock and sand, put it all together, added beneficial bacteria, and in two days had fish in it with no problem! Damsels make a great starter kit, but are verry agressive(they sort of remind me of my chiclids). It has been a month now, I added my first coral= yellow tulips. I think that a tank without a lid is better. That way you can add an efficient skimmer, instead of finding a way to modify something into a closed lid nano tank. But at least there is less water evaporation!

I've had freshwater tanks as long as I can remember. My partner at work had a 10 gallon sw with a anemone and clownfish. He wanted something bigger and asked me if I would like to buy his 10g. I went to look at it and I was hooked. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I knew nothing about sw so of course it didn't last long. Lack of proper lighting and maintenance, I'm sure. Tried seahorses after that, again no idea what I was doing. I saw a bumblebee goby in a brackish tank at the lfs and a google search including the term goby led me to NR. Once I researched and read everything I could, I started getting it right! No turning back!

Like many people that have posted I have always been into FW keeping Oscars, Africans, and Discus....So with my love for FW and a $1500 bonus check I jumped into SW. And the rest is history!

started with FW of course, still have a 33g community tank, if it wasn't for the 2 blood red parrots I would probably tear that tank apart and change it over to SW. Read newsgroups and hundreds of $$ worth of books for a few years before I finally tore apart my 10g planted FW tank and made the change over. Hope to be at it for a long time yet. If only I had more money!!

GOOGLE search!

my obsession of saltwater and reefs got me into aquarium keeping, then i wanted to get a nano b/c a 14yr old can only afford so much(tank is still coming this spring though)

I saw an artical in Practicle Fish keeping here in the UK. A NC was featured and i thought cool i have one of those maybe i can get into saltwater. Then i read steelhealr's forum and now i can't wait to get going!

a boyhood love of the ocean/whales/sharks/fish/shells lead to...
years of aquatic life research...
1/2 gallon betta bowl...
months of research later...
10 gallon female bettas...
months of research (and several additional betta tanks) later...
set-up a little betta breeding program...
had several successful broods of bettas...
10 gallon cherry barbs...
10 gallon cichlid growout...
after seeing an imax documentary titled "coral reefs adventure" (or somthing like that) I was decided to pursuit my life-long aquatic dream... a marine aquarium...
years of research...
exstensive internet research brought me to this great website...
months of research...
finally set up the 55 gallon sw aquarium... it's still doin' great...
now the saga continues... I'm working on a customized 2.5 gallon pico...
and hopefully the future holds a custom 100 gallon mixed reef (got the schematics... not the money) ...

I don't know what I'd do without this webstie or the reefkeeping community. Thanks NR.

I was at a pet store picking up supplies for my frog when I noticed a 12 gallon aquarium on the counter. I looked at it and asked the clerk, "are those corals in there?!" The rest is history.

By chance.

I walked into a LFS to buy a tiny FW tank for my son. As I was hanging out, I noticed the 6g JBJ NanoCube. It was all over at that point. Even though it looked like crap at the LFS, I knew... I knew in my heart it was for me.

The fact that I have never done salt before is no never mind.

Oddly, though, here I sit with a 2.5g pico, and am STILL (despite the masterful CCJung's expertise) getting ready to light up the (now 12g) NanoCube. Soon! Soon... (and that's what they all say).

The 2.5g pico, although a royal pain sometimes, is a constant source of wonderment for me, as it sits on my desk. I think EVERYONE should have on their desk.

david

a thin wallet.

I used to work at good old 'World of Water' garden centres in England back in the early 90s from when i was 15-20 part-time - I was more into Discus and south american catfish tanks, although i also kept malawian cichlids - I had great fun ordering all the rare stuff straight from the book and when the boxes of fish came all the way from Singapore every week I felt like it was christmas! Then we set up three marine tanks which ultimately lead to failure as they running at a loss after 6mths seeing as they were just the same freshwater tanks with salt water, no increased filtration or lighting and no centralised system back in those days! But, it made an impact on me then and I was more in awe of the complete diversity - I was more into aquascaping than I was just keeping fish to say i had something exotic, and reeftanks had more draw than planted tanks -

My first reeftank had black mollies in it! They bred like crazy and then i took them back and bought a damsel, a clownfish, a mandarin fish [i remember wondering why it died as it looked so healthy.....!], a tiny panther/barramundi/polker-dot grouper and a pufferfish. My polkerdot was my fave, my puffer ended up sucumming to my anemone [which ate it - NS! BTW i kept the poor anemone for 6mths under normal flourescents like it was the thing to do! It never died, just shrank considerably] and I had to dismantle the tank to go to uni in 1994.

Then I started Scuba Diving whilst travelling about; on the ningaloo and barrier reef, NZ, Indo and malaysia and it took my breath away! To see that much life perched on the edge of nothing and its significance... i remember i cried when i saw 150 bannerfish all swimming in a shoal down a reef wall in fiji - like your nanoreef? GO DIVING!

Set up my first proper reef tank abt 7mths ago, alas only a nanocube24, but space permitting [i live in downtown appartment], I think ill turn my next abode into an underwater escape, partner permitting.
The internet has been the key to any sucess and to identifying my failures as the amt of information here on nanoreef and elsewhere is fantastic, esp as im a lover of cross-referencing and not believing any single source.

I discovered Nano Reef's when a friend of mine told me a Pet store had small Saltwater tanks, so I went there and saw 4 JBJ Nanocubes (2 24's, 1 12, 1 6). And than it began, I started researching, and I found this site, I now have (thanks to this place) a 2.5g pico working, and I'm slowing getting together the stuff for a 30g (+10g sump.) [I have always wented to do a SW tank, but everyone has always (and still) told me they are too difficult. Of course, after my research, I really don't think they are, worse than FW, but not impossible.]

LOL a thin wallet thats great after I saw my neihbors tank I had to have one they were SWEET but I started looking and researching and finnaly knew what I wanted a 300g with EVERYTHING and figured out I couldnt even afford the tank so i halfed that gallonage ( is that a word?) and still couldnt try a 90 same thing. I searched small reef aquriums on google you guys poped up and I was hooked.

Julian Sprung’s 15-gallon mini-reef tank back in the early 90’s really inspired me. That was one incredible tank for it’s time. He would show pics once in a while in FAMA.

Trying to find the right lighting for a nano reef was the thing that kept me from starting a nano. Then Custom Sea Life came out with 6500K and ACT power compacts in the mid 90’s and that got me going on my 1st nano reef.
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=77773

Rick

I had gotten into African Cichlids and was in the market for a 75g Tank on a budget. I found a great deal on a tank and stand on ebay with a buy it now of $200! I jumped at the deal and it just so happened to be 1hr 1/2 drive away, in a city my wife had wanted to visit! "Surprise honey, we're taking a road trip for the weekend and we are leaving in 30 min!!"

When we got to the guy's apartment, he was really great and his girlfriend happened to be there chillin. My wife got to chat and socialized while we figured out how I was going to get the tank and the stand in my Xterra. When we were looking at the tank I noticed this blinding little light hanging from the ceiling suspended over this tiny little cube shaped tank in the corner. I noticed a clown swimming around and some corals. It was all on a broken down old desk/book shelf thing covered with salt creep and surrounded by all the paraphernalia of a salt water fiend.

When I asked, he said, "Yeah man that’s why I'm selling all this other crap... to fund my nano reef"...4 months later after establishing a 75g African cichlid tank I began a Google search for nano reef....

Found it doing a google search!

I went and saw this cool movie called "Finding Nemo" and that sort of got the ball rolling.

I've been into freshwater for most of my my life, so I've alway had tanks around the house. But, the saltwater thing didn't come about 'till I was eight or nine.

:WARNING: Long, boring story about my first saltwater fish tank.

I had been breeding guppies and mollies for a few years and selling them to the LFS and saved up enough money to get another tank, but didn't really know what I wanted to keep in it. Then I had a stroke of genius. I was going to fill it with mud and put fiddler crabs in it.

Later in the week I went to an undisclosed location with my brothers and some friends to collect the crabs and anything else that looked cool and lived in mud. And apparently such activities are prohibited by law in said undisclosed location, according to the guy that made us let them all go. He was nice enough to "let us off with a warning," so I was going to repay the favor and wait till I couldn't see him anymore to put them back in my bucket, but he seemed to think we should go with him to the boat dock and ask people if we could "play with thier left over bait."

At the boat dock I had another genius idea. Silversides and rocks would be cool as 'ell. We did manage to snatch a bucket full of rocks and some snails and such after the wildlife protection guy left. So I did get a crab. I kept the bait only with live rocks theme for a few years. It is still one of the coolest tanks I've had. Definately better than the pimped out 50g goldfish tank. Even though I did get more than twice as much for the goldfish tank when I had to get rid of them.

:End of boring story:

Anyway, my fist reef tank was just an extention of the silverside tank. I came up with that checking out a new LFS store to get some salt mix.

I didn't really have any problems when I went to reefing. I had always been one too keep up on water quality. Even in my goldfish tank I kept perfect water. I did have a small problem with PH at first, but that was caused by poor quality salts that mixed differently from batch to batch. After I started using better salt, I didn't have to worry about it much.

Really it was just a natural progression. Since the time I won that goldfish (Charlie) at the carnival, I've been on a path that can only lead to a 10,000+ gallon reef tank. So far I haven't been able to break the 50g mark on any tank, but that may be coming this summer when I can finally get another reef tank going. I will also be working on a smaller, probably 10 gallon at the same time, so when I start that I'll be actually posting in the forums more often instead of just hiding in the shadows and watching everyone elses tanks grow up.

Like 'most everyone, I always had a FW tank growing up. But, being an artist, the amazing colors and fantastic shapes of the SW world dazzled me. When I got married my husband gave me an Eclipse 12 and I got a book and decided I'd try it (my pre-internet days). Of course all the lfs's said it couldn't be done, but I started out FOWFC (fake coral) and had great success! And there was that "one more fish". I remember it like it was yesterday....(dream sequence) That little Catalina Goby lookin' at me with those bedroom eyes just beggin' me to take her home.... Then, death & destruction.

So I went back to the lfs to find out why. I thought they were experts, silly me! (btw, I now know my temps were too high- God bless the internet!) And the Eclipse is a complete set up so I didn't have to do anything to it.... Anyway, at least the lfs got me going with live rock and some shrooms. Lots of bad choices of fish and gargonians. Again, complete ignorance, I was depending on the lfs guys to help me make those decisions. But I ended up with a great Flame Hawkfish, one HUGE gorgeous iridescent frilly mushroom and lots of inverts.

Because of a move I had to break it down and find homes for everybody. But now I'm back and starting over from square one. I thought a small reef could only be done to a limited degree (LR, a fish or two and a mushroom), but then I found this site. The people on this site are so encouraging and motivating with their beautiful tanks! I read Steelhealr's thread (God bless him!), other sites, bought a couple more books and I'm not buying a tank until I sell that monkey on my back stupid house! I'm just itching to start, but as a wise man has said, "beauty happens slowly, disaster happens quickly."

I started after finding a link. I'm a poster for a number of forums so I figured one more wouldn't kill me. (RC, HVRK, & Reef Talk) So I figured one last forum wouldn't hurt.

There wasn't anything difficult about signing up other than a huge "Join now, free." Free membership with the choice of upgrading is certainly the best way to attract members. I have recently just upgraded to a Premium Membership because I believe in supporting forums such as this. You all do good work and try to spread what you know. That is certainly a well spent $24, although $24 for only a few features such as that is a bit... pricey. I'd certainly say cutting the cost would bring more premium memberships.

As for what I'd do differently with the forums, I'm not too sure. If I think of anything during the time of this thread, I'll post.

My cousin posted around here as 'crazyfishdude'. He first told me about it. He never mentiond NR.com. I found this place myself. I had a 2 gallon for 2 years with a clown. She died. Now I am ordering a 12G NC DX very soon.

I have always been fascinated by aquariums since as long as I can remember. but as for nano-reefing, walking into many local LFS i kept seeing the JBJ 6 gallon with a clown and a bunch of corals. i was saving up to buy one but I stumbled unto this site and learned about the amazing world of picos and started a 2.5. but what pushed me to do it even more was how anti-nano some people are. *cough*aquahobby forums *cough*. theyre just full of envy so they gotta be jerks about it.

Good ol "Jaws". Thought i could keep a shark in 30g. How depressing.

Saw an ad for the first JBJ and my 180 wasn't (and still isn't) finished.

[font=Garamond]
Hi all,

I picked up a magazine a couple of years ago with some great shots of bookshelf-sized nano's. A month and a half ago I finally found the Perfect tank at the mall! :-)

About 1.5 gallons, short round and wide, but with a neck. (sort of like my 4th grade photos)

I drilled it for an air hose, dumped in an inch (25.4 mm) of live sand from the big tank, chipped on a hunk of LR until it Just fits. The advantage of the round tank; it MAGNIFIES everything! It looks like I GREW the rock in there because it couldn't possibly fit thru the neck.

It sits at work on my desk now with two tiny hermits and an astrea snail. It has been very stable for a week or 2, and is officially due for improvement$ this week.

I'm hooked!

My bro has a 50 gal arrowana tank. and I've always been into salt-water being born in the Fiji Islands. So few trips to the LFS got me hooked. BUT the LFS was a little discouraging, THEN I found this site as well as mini-bow enthusiasts. Now i've moved into my 18 gal. Good times. thanks to N-R.com. Take that LFS. They still laugh when I by stuff of them and they ask me what it's for. But little do they know MY tanks are thriving more than any of there HUGE monsters. In fact they just set-up a 200+ gal with crazy lighting and live stock. A month into it's life everything except live rock was removed because of a Unbeleiveable brown algea bloom. HAHA. And my buddy who saw my tank went out and bought a full 3000$ 50gal bow-front FOWOL out the box system from the same LFS has the same brown algea bloom. Just goes to show you your LFS is not always the best source. There all about the almighty dollar. Speakin of which N-R.com will be getting a donation from me. The info given is priceless. thanks for reading my rant.
p.s. not to say all LFS are bad, just buyer beware-do your research. I guess thats what you get when you're lead to believe SW tanks are easy. Now i'm tryin to make my buddy feel better and lettin him know it will go away. Can you believe the LFS guy didn't recomend using RO water???? He used tap water

i find a link of it on another reefing website and just automaticaly quit the other one =D

by checking books out at the library(they were like 16 years old, but at least it helped.)

nano cube on Ebay ~ then Google it and found the Nano REEF

When I first moved to Arizona my new landlord has a limit of 20gal for fish tanks, I am on the 3rd floor and don't have a lot of room in the place, so little room that the tank will be going to work with me soon.

almost 10 years ago I saw a little 3 or 4 gallon tru-Vu tank with a duetto filter at LFS. Found NR.com about 2 years ago through random searches while looking for reef keeping information.

My boyfriend had a 55 gallon SW tank in our apartment and I had a 10 gallon FW. I was at school one day and got a message from him saying, "I know we haven't talked about it lately but I wanted to turn the 10 gallon into salt water. I know when I mentioned it you didn't really oppose so I hope it's ok." I came home to find that all of my FW fish had been returned to the fish store and my little tank was full of white sand and live rock.

After keeping fish for many years and finally successfully breeding freshwater puffer fish i needed another challenge, so i picked up a huge 5-gallon tank did some research started off with a stomatopod and some live rock. Hardest part of the hobby was figuring out what to do with the tank when on vacation.

My daughter was born 3 months premature and we had to give our cats to some friends because we didn't want them to be neglected while we were spending all our time at the hospital. She's almost two now and requires a lot more care than most babies due to her cerebal palsy. My wife missed having pets, but our daughter still needs too much attention to justify a needy pet like a cat.

When my yearly bonus came up, my wife did a ton of research, and set up a 20 gallon and a 10 gallon tank with her half. She talked about all these terms like "cycling" and I realized for the first time that one can have significant control of and information about the fish's environment, and solve problems before they become deadly. I had been reluctant to try fish again since a bad experience when I was about 10. I was very good at chemistry in college, so the idea that fish could be kept healthy largely by solving simple chemistry problems encouraged me to try.

I like the uniqueness and vibrance of saltwater fish, but I also wanted to be able to keep the fish on my desk in my cubicle. All the websites I visited had seemingly conflicting information. They said 55 gallons was recommended and 20 gallons was the absolute minimum. However, they also said that a 20 gallon tank could hold 4 or 5 fish. When the box on the Eclipse 5 said it was suitable for freshwater or saltwater, that gave me enough of a nudge to buy it and take a risk.

To maximize my chances of success, I decided to start with only one fish and maybe a small crab to help keep the bottom clean, waiting until I could prove to myself that I could keep the water stable before trying anything more difficult. I am cycling the tank before adding the fish so that I will have some breathing room for mistakes. I also added an airstone in addition to the built in filter to help mitigate a potential dissolved oxygen problem.

In the meantime, I am researching which fish/crab combinations will work and I kept getting this growing sense of dread that I am seemingly going against the collective wisdom of hundreds of marine aquarium experts. I came across the "nano tank" term by accident. The criticisms against it seemed shallow. Experts claiming it can't be done, ignoring the success of many others who have done it for years.

That struck a familiar chord with me. I am a software engineer, and have endured similar abundant criticism of the Linux operating system, which I have been using successfully instead of Microsoft Windows for 8 years. It's not always easy, but it is definitely possible and even enjoyable for someone determined enough to try, despite the claims of "experts." So, finding nano-tankers in a similar plight made me feel instantly a part of the group.

I found this site by a google search. You won't believe how much it has boosted my confidence to know that not only can saltwater fish in a small tank be done, but that enough people do it that there is a term for it and entire websites dedicated to it. My tank will probably be ready to get my first fish this weekend and now I can have more excitement than dread. I'll definitely be coming back here for help and comraderie.

The best part is, I have spent a lot less than my wife has on her freshwater setup. I don't know how long that will last though. We are already talking about saving up for a 100 gallon saltwater tank that we can do together.

converted a 5gal eclipse to salt because I was bored w/Tanganyikans. Abuddy@LFS said if Icould make it work, Icould make any tank work. I currently have 15lbs of live rock, one three stipe damsel&one baby niger trigger. For corals I have 2 mushrooms& 9! ricordia(3 are currently splitting). For clean up crew I have 2 astrea snails, 1 blue& 1red leg hermit, and one small Harlequin brittle star. There were a couple of bristleworms stirring up the sand but I went away for the weekend a few mos. ago and my trigger got hungry..... Amazingly he doesnt bother the ricordia and my readings are all zero except for nitrates are about 6-10ppm with weekly water changes. For lights I use a Coralife 50/50 13w bulb&a coralife moonlight at night. Tank is about 1yr&2mos old and covered w/purple, lavender, and red corraline algae(I have to srape it off the front 3 panels every two weeks).

Finding Nemo got me hooked on SW tanks.

, Actually no, some friends of mine were into FW and one of them eventually got a saltwater tank and when i first saw it i was hooked. I researched for a month or so the bought my cube. Its been up and running now for almost 5 months..

I got my first fish tank (FW 1G hex) in 1997. First SW tank (10G AGA) in 2002. 12G NC in 2004. 75G AGA in 2005. 26G bowfront in 2005 (to be a SPS tank by 2008). A 29G AGA tank in 2005. A 11G acrylic ViaAqua tank in 2006. What my next tank will be? I don't know. Most likely a Pico. Or a fuge for my 75G AGA.


I'm addicted!!!

New here but not to reef keeping. I started with a 5 gallon FW in 1959. Was keeping salt water tanks by 1966- (never bigger than a 20 G) and keeping and breeding Hippocampus zostrae. I went on to major in Zoology and then graduate school in Biological Oceanography, where I kept salt water again- never bigger than a 20 G HA! (Not on a grad students salary!) Stopped aquariums for many years due to having children and no time- and then my oldest daughter started working at a pet store with salt water tanks- and a friend gave my hubby a 29 G. Sooo I could not resist getting into reef tanks. I now have a 55 G reef and several nano's and I just started up a pico at work because my temporary office is shared and there is no space! I had to move my 11G ViaAqua with refugium home from my "real" office.

Like many here, I came from a FW background. I talked my wife into letting me setup a 100g African Cichlid tank. She let me do it, but she didn't like the money it was costing. Regardless, I tried to get her excited and involved by taking her to the LFS to help me pick out livestock. However, every time we went, she darted straight to the SW section because of all the colors (and seahorses). I didn't even consider starting a SW or reef tank at the time because I was under the impression that everything salt cost huge $$$:bling:, requiring at least a 55g tank, had to have MH lights, skimmer, ref, sumps, etc.

Then I went to an LFS that had a 10g tank sitting by the register. It was nothing fancy. Just some LR, a few polyps and a clown in a tank with an HOB filter and stock AGA hood. I went in there about once a week for a few months to see if the guy had any new species of cichlids. Every time I went in, I noticed there was something new in the tank by the register. A new shrimp, more polyps, more of some purple stuff (coralline algae) and the same clown. It was starting to look pretty cool. So I get talking to the owner and he told me it was a nano reef tank and he purposely setup the tank to prove that salt isn't overly priced.

So I decided to talk my wife into letting me startup a reef tank like the ones she saw in the store but much smaller (10g-20g). I warmed her up by pointing out the 10g tank every time she went in with me. Eventually, she reluctantly agreed, but made me promise "NO MORE FISH TANKS!" after this one . So as I did when I started my Cichlid tank, I looked to my buddy Google. The first return for "nano reef" landed me here and I haven't had to go much farther since.

I have kep FW tanks since I was little. After some research, I figured I would give SW a try and being a college student money was an issue. I due hope to go to a 100 gallon once I graduate and get a real job

How discover and why started: seen LFS with MH lighted tanks, dark winter, more free time, why not? Nano size - because of nano-expences and nano-house.
What was difficult or not expected: level of expences other than tank, salt, fish/corals and food. Equipment that doesn't perform fuctions it's sold for, tests with incorrect results, additives that making worse instead of better. And the fun part: after reseach, equipped tank as it was done many times by forum members; guess what - it don't fit into the chamber!
What will be done differently if started now:
- Don't start - too expensive.
- If start, don't fall into "buy biggest you can afford" - tank is the least expence in the hobby. Last thing I want - it's carry buckets of salt water in and out of living room with hardwood floor.
- "Research first and then buy" concept don't work where demand is higher than supply. Incompatible species then moved to anoter tank, and another, and another.
- If only one room is air conditioned in the summer, and basement is too cold in the winter, all these tanks will accumulate in one room, because disassemble everything and move into another room twice each year is not good nor for a tank, nor for inhabitants. Leave alone the cleaner wrasse, that can't be catched in the rank with live rock.
- Helpful enthusiasts in the home are out of help and enthysiasm when it comes to maintenance. But everybody wants a little crispy sunny paradise in the winter.
- Non-photosyntetic coral that require frequent water changes because of feeding (sun coral) are better to keep in not encosed systems as Nanocube with difficult access to the chambers. Usual HOB filter whith easily cartridge in or out, is much suitable, thought not so esthetic.
- Summary: go pico and no fish!

I like to break rules and push peoples buttons. It is my # 1 fave hobby to do such. I got a used 75 gallon tank over 10 years ago, and started a salt tank. Reefing was not all that it is today, and a lot of the "basics" and things we take for granted now was not the norm. I was in a LFS, and was looking at some different tanks, and decided to set up a "hospital/ quarintine tank" with a 10 gallon.... whicht he store employees reccomended to be done with ALL fish before they go into a display tank.

Oddly enough, the yellow tang that is "too big" for a 30 gallon tank reef ( they said store policy was 55 gallon minimum for salt set ups) but he sure fit in that 10 gallon just fine for 2 weeks ! well, the tank was looking quite boring, and I had some extra reef rubble, some sand and a few chunks of semi-cured live rock, so I said to myself...." well, why not? " and added them to the 10 gallon. 2 weeks later, I retro fitted some bulbs to it inside a custom wood hood, and cycled it. Fast forward 3 months later I had a jawdropping ten gallon "mini reef" that I had put a few corals in and it was perhaps the first ..... um... well what the hell do I call it ? a mini reef ? a microcosim? surely not a bucketarium...... so I googled and found the term of "nano-reef".

Oddly enough There was a link to a site and I clicked it. I believe I was member number 250. I jumped up and down and giggled cause I was sooooo going to thow this in the faces of the LFS punks who still didn't grasp my concept of a "ten gallon reef" as doing such was "impossible"... or so they said ! Yellow/orange and blue pagecolor layout, a chat that rarely worked right, and choppy at best HTML. Made a few friends, made a few enemies, but it was a newfound "home". Nano-reef has evolved from a rinky dink site with a rag-tag bunch of reefers into a site that rivals Reefcentral.


To this day I still have that same tank, and it doubles as a kitty-cat bed warmer
.....and The rest is history

-Dave

Saw an article about Italian “miniature reefs” on About.com. From there discovered Minibow.com (which seems to have been abandoned) which had a link to Nano-reef.com. From there I studied the articles on nano-reef.com and have been keeping nano tanks for 4 years. I remember the days when nano-reefers here would discuss the merits of penguin filters vs. aquaclear filters and compact fluorescents were considered a huge upgrade.

Now I have been doing Pico tanks as I prefer changing 16oz of water from a small plastic bottle as opposed to my days of spilling gallons of water all over my furniture and floor once a week. Less weekly work, but slightly more easy daily duties and less $$ to create a tank with that wall-to-wall-coral appearance.

The hardest thing was knowing I was stressing and maybe damaging corals by rearranging the live rock and corals every five minutes…but doing it anyways.

The thing I would have done differently is avoided the expensive plastic gadgets that promise less maintenance and better water quality.

Hmmmmm....

I was tending to my 70 and low and behold I had a Mantis hitcher from my TB Saltwater rock.

Little bugger had nuked every snail for 2 years before I caught it.....

I was gonna send him the Bank of American Standard but the little guy facinated me.

So I pulled a couple of chunks of rock and put it into a desktop Eclipse 6 I had laying around.

While it sucked for reef keeping it caused me to get the bug for the tiny reef.

I now have a NC12 that I am getting ready to get set up.

i haf got long been rather intreasted in salwater fishes, but they always seemed so hard to keep, and i confess, finding nemo gave me a little more push to really get serious, of course in the apartment i lived in at the time space was an issue as well as money, so after months of dedicated research i finally got started in february last year, and started my first successful reef , i built it up slowly over time, and it looks real nice today populated by a wide variety of inverts, bought and hitchhikers, as well as a great number of corals, Polyps, Shrooms, SPS and LPS.(and ppl here say 30w is too little for SPS and LPS of the species i keep)

I grew up in the desert Southwest USA, so water life has always been rare and exotic and fascinating to me. About a year ago I decided to seriously look into getting a marine aquarium. I live in New York, so I knew I would have to do something small. Try googling for "mini reef" and check out the 300-Gallon systems that come up...

My girlfriend got interested as well, and she discovered NR. We did research for about 4 months, and she and her family ended up getting me a 12-Gal NC DX for my birthday.

If I had it to do differently, I'd do all of the mods I've done and still want to do before stocking the system. Drilling holes in a water-filled box is frustrating.

I was at my local lfs in north texas and I saw them bring out this .5g pico and put sand and water in it..a week later i saw 2 hermits and a snail...thought it was amazing at the time and still do.

I am a "tank-fanatic" for 35 years now. I started at the age of 7. Mainly freshwatertanks. Untill recently (after taken care of big saltwatertanks for some time - I took care of tanks up to 450 Gal) I never was convinced that it is possible to maintain a small saltwatertank without problems (less than 40 Gal). This, because of the fact that I always thought big in means of tank, filter, scimmer and other technical precautions according to maintain saltwatertanks.

Recently I had a breake (in means of having a tank at all). I was bored of yet again a freshwatertank with cardinals, etc.. And I also did not have any succes with the saltwatertank I setup at home about three years ago (because of the tanktemperature I could not control on hot days, problems with the filtering, scimmer, and so on - a disaster after all). So I decided to quit (sold the content including fish - they survived all - thanks God) and I was a disapointed in myself (unless the great care I took in maintaining a tank in wich I did not succeed). What did I do wrong? But unless afer all I kept visiting my local petshop. Enjoying the fish in the store. The owner advised me to take a look at your site (he saw that I was desperate and lost).

After creating a membership on Nano-reef.com I read a lot of articles and my interest grew again. I had an "left over tank" about 12 Gal. This tank might suite a nano-reef I thought.

So I started up the tank the way I use to do (filled up with water from big, perfect running tanks - with aid of my petshopowner - Jan thanks again!!!). And patience for six weeks.

After the q.-period I started with filling up the tank with fish and other inhabitants (slightly). Because you have to think small if you own a Nano-reef (that's the main rule).

And up till now everything is an big succes. I had some casualties....one fish and one species of hard corall died. All the rest flurishes and grows.
(It's a pitty I can not show you any pictures of my tank because I am a junior member.)

Greatings to all Nano-reefers,

Juulke

I was reading postings on rec.aquaria.marine.reefs on usenet. started reading more and more about people keeping more than fish only marine tanks, actually keeping corals. Then there was something akin to heresey and people started trying to keep small reef aqauriums. The term nano reef was tossed around.

I read the Reefkeepers FAQ - the entire thing, and was facinated.

Googled nano reef and found nano-reef.com. Saw some amzing little tanks. One tank in particular was the one I showed a lot of people. Cyber's 18 gallon Via Aqua stuffed full of zoo's. Learned so much about the hobby reading and asking a few questions. Mostly reading.

3 Tanks now - A Via Aqua 18, A nano-cube and a 75 gallon.

Thriving !