Lifeguard vs Ultum Picos - Any opinions/experience

[dnadrifter]

I go through almost setting up a reef aquarium every 1.5 yrs, but I may actually do it this time.   I am just really curious how it all works and figuring it out.  I know it will be more difficult with a Pico, water parameter wise, but I am up for the challenge and potential failures / crashes.

 

Looking at Lifegard 4.1, but also saw the Ultum tanks in a LFS today they looked nice and very similar.  They have a 5.5 that would compare favorable to the 4.1.  Any experience comparing these two?

[jbb]

UNS makes really nice tanks . 

 

I have the 3g and really like it,  the 12" cube I had was very nice as well. 

 

No experience with Lifeguard tanks 

[The Rainy Day Aquarium]

I have the Lifegard 4.1. It's a great little tank! However it has it's quirks. There is a Lifegard owners thread here if you want to skim through that: 

Like @jbb_00 said, UNS makes some slick aquariums as well (howbeit I'm biased toward Lifegard😉). I think it will come down to your personal choice of shape and size of either tank 😊 Pico reefs are super rewarding; a challenge for sure, but I don't think they are as hard as people make them out to be for the most part IMO. There is just something about a super small tank filled with thriving coral that's super cool to me. Just keep up on water changes and that's half of the battle right there. 😁

[dnadrifter]

Thanks.   I have definitely been reading the lifeguard thread.   I am leaning that directly as they seem like a decent tank at a good price and am not looking to spend a ton of money on equip getting my feet wet.   I would rather spend money on resupplying livestock after I make mistakes.   🙂

[dnadrifter]

First off, apologies for posting this thread here....just realized this pico forum is under the aquarium journal part.   Mods, please move to a more appropriate location.

 

I am close to buying the UNS30A AIO 7 gallon.   Any other 7 gallon AIOs with low iron glass I should consider.  I know lifegard has a 7 gallon peninsula, but am not really looking for a peninsula.   Not a lot of buying options for the UNS though.  One of my LFSs has it, but with our local shelter in place orders, probably not the best decision to drive to get a tank...maybe not the worst either?  😉

[dnadrifter]

Pulled the trigger.  Purchased a 7 gallon UNS AIO this afternoon.  Plan to start a thread once I start setting it up. 

[SliceGolfer]

On 3/18/2020 at 7:08 PM, dnadrifter said:

Pulled the trigger.  Purchased a 7 gallon UNS AIO this afternoon.  Plan to start a thread once I start setting it up. 

Let’s see that thread over here on NR!

[dnadrifter]

I have my build thread here actually, but I figured it wasn't a pico at 7 gallons, so I put it in the normal nano aquarium journal forum area.   link is in my sig.

 

(I consider Nano Reef my base forum as most of the info and advice I have received dating back to 2013 has been from here.  It is also seems like a smaller community which I like.   I just popped over to R2R to check things out and figured I would post since I now actually have a tank...WooHoo!)