20 Years of Nano-Reef.com - A Birthday Celebration! 🎂

[Christopher Marks]

🍾 Join me in celebrating the Nano-Reef.com Community's 20th Birthday! 🎉

 

I cannot believe 20 years have gone by since I first started Nano-Reef.com as a teenage aquarist, curious to share the concept of nano reef keeping with the world. Back then the idea of keeping a reef aquarium under 75 gallons was pretty controversial in the hobby, there were few documented examples on the web or in books, and even less followup on how they had turned out long term. I started this website in 2001 to share my simple all-natural reef keeping philosophy using live rock and sand, and show how simple dedicated maintenance with easy water changes can lead to a sustainable small scale 'nano reef' ecosystem. Our forums went live a couple months thereafter, and on this foundation an incredible community of hobbyists has grown! Sharing our experiences and documenting them along the way, we've pushed the limits of reef keeping knowledge and made some amazing discoveries in the process. This community has touched generations of reef hobbyists, created countless friendships, launched amazing hobbyist owned businesses, cut the teeth of a new emerging reef keeping technologies, and supported countless hobbyists as they entered the reef keeping world. I am deeply honored to be host to such an awesome community of people, thank you all for being a part!

 

 

To celebrate this milestone, I'd like to give away 20 Nano-Reef.com Sticker Packs to 20 lucky community members!

 

For a chance to win, simply post here and share a personal memory from your time here on Nano-Reef, a funny moment, a past aquarium you miss, an old photo from years ago, you get the idea. I'll randomly draw 20 names from amongst the group who responds here in this thread by May 12, simple as that! 🙂 

 

I'll start things off by sharing a memory of mine, a photo of my first nano reef, housed in an aquarium that I hand built, a 7.5 gallon 'all-in-one' tank I briefly sold online under the brand Nano Reef Aquaria. It featured two 32w power compact bulbs in a custom extruded aluminum housing. Those of you who have been around since the beginning will remember these! I was just about to graduate high school when this tank photo was taken in 2003. That PC monitor in the background was the computer I first built the website on.

 

May 11, 2003

 

May 11, 2003

 

Thank you to everyone who has contributed your time, knowledge, experiences, questions and passion to the community throughout these past 20 years, you are the ones who make this community such a tremendous resource and support group for hobbyists all across the world! I also want to thank our amazing community sponsors who have supported us along the way, their contributions are what keeps the server lights on and we wouldn't be here all these years later without their dedicated support! ❤️ 

 

I can't go without also thanking my family for their tremendous support these past 20 years. Nano-Reef has been a part of my life since age 15, and I could not have built this website without all their support. My mom helped me get my first freshwater aquarium when I was 10, and she always supported my interest in the hobby, with countless rides to LFS's and support for my rapidly multiplying tanks, one even ended up in our kitchen for a time. My dad has always supported me through the technical side of things, from letting a 15 year old borrow his credit card to register nano-reef.com 20 years ago (it cost $75 a year for a domain name back then, I paid him back with money from my 1st job, at least in my memory 😄), to helping me build and prototype all those all-in-one nano reef tanks, which we packed and shipped out together after he helped me start a business around my passion (Nano Reef Aquaria). Their support is immense and innumerable, and I am grateful they saw the potential in helping me follow my interests. I met my wife Courtney when Nano-Reef.com was just 10 years old, and she has supported me in countless ways over the years, through the highs and lows of being a community administrator, late nights working on website updates and articles, and propping me up when I've needed it most. I am so grateful that she has taken such an interest in the hobby and always tags along for Nano-Reef gatherings, MACNAs and LFS visits.

 

Looking forward, it's my hope that the Nano-Reef Community can long endure as a resource for hobbyists across the world, not only to learn about aquarium keeping, but also to connect with each other on a deeper level through our shared passion for this hobby. We're all in this together!

 

[aclman88]

Thanks @Christopher Marks for creating and maintaining this website and building such an amazing community. I’m incredibly grateful for all the help and support I’ve got along the way. My fondest memory is @TatorTaco giving me tons of supplies including rock, live sand and gear when I first started and asking for nothing in return. That’s when I knew this place was special. Also just want to shout out @Clown79 and @jservedio for being especially helpful throughout my journey. 

[SnackySmores]

Thanks for making this site possible, congrats on the anniversary.

[Sharbuckle]

Wow, so cool!Congratulations CM. What a milestone! Looking back on my 12ish years on nano-reef I don’t think I would be in the hobby without it. It was an honour to be featured on TOTM and this will continue to be the only forum I post on! 
 

Thank you for your hard work and keep it up. We appreciate you. 

[Daniel92481]

Congratulations on 20 years of reefing knowledge! @Christopher Marks your website has been a go-to for me on reefing knowledge since entering the hobby in 2018. I have learned a lot from this community, as well as received inspiration from other users. Thank you for sticking with your passion over the years, allowing us newbies to collectively become a little more experienced through your website. 😃

[Jaren45]

Joined super late but this place rocks!

[WV Reefer]

Yay!!!!
Happy Birthday NR! 🥳

 

I’ve made so many friends here and learned so many things...............

and a few things I didn’t want to know! 😁

 

 

[Reefkid88]

This is a huge accomplishment !! Thank you @Christopher Marks for starting the site and building the community you have. Its been an amazing journey and taught me so much. 

 

 Happy Bornday NR !!!  

[Jakesaw]

Happy Anniversary Nano Reef

 

Re: Picture in first post.  What ever happened to the Blue painted aquarium backs.  I remember them being pretty prevalent 20 years ago when I tinkered with the idea of a reef tank.  Now it seems every tank is painted black. ( Mine is too )

 

Anybody know the reason why the hobby migrated away from blue painted tanks.  Or am I imagining this.

[Thrassian Atoll]

Congratulations @Christopher Marks on the huge milestone!  I hope this page continues to grow and expand for many years to come.  I definitely wouldn’t be in the hobby I don’t think if it weren’t for nano-reef helping me a long the way.

 

Those are some good photos too by the way for 2003.  Photos I took 5 years ago look like they were taken with a potato.

[ef4life]

I’m having a beer for nano reef🍺

[Murphs_Reef]

20 years. Wow that's amazing.. great site with great people. I have been around this site since 2015 with various tanks and ideas, some bad some not so bad. I have takes inspiration from many people here and have gained some great knowledge from just about everyone. 

 

Here's for another 20 years! 

[ａｗａｋｅｄॢ]

 

🎉 Congratulations! 🎉

 

Time is so fast,,,😱 

Here means a lot to me as personal,,, @Christopher Marks might remember that I was able to creative a community ‘nano-reef.net’ based on this community, although it does not exist now due to my lack of leadership and personal circumstances,,,🤣 I owe a debt of gratitude to that still. 😊

So, it is an even greater achievement.👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

 

🍾May it be forever in the future~!🙏🏻
 

[debbeach13]

Christopher he's our man

If he can do it

We all can!

Thousands of people have learned how to properly set up and maintain a nano reef because of this site.

Memory - I purchased a JBJ 24G nano cube on line. It arrived safe and sound (no crack) and was set up on 07/16/05. Needing more info on these new all in one tanks that no one on fishnet.com was even talking about yet I did a search for forums and found Nano reefs. Then I found Steelhealr thread and I have been hooked on this site ever since.

Happy Anniversary! 

THANK YOU.. 

[Nano sapiens]

Wow, 20 years!  Loved reading about the history behind the beginning of NR.  Awesome to hear about the support that you received from your family when starting out.

 

I remember my first Web search back in 2008 looking for a more nano reef specific site, which is when I found NR.  In addition, the K.I.S.S. philosophy mirrored my own that I'd been using for the last 34 years keeping reef aquaria so it was a perfect fit.

 

Here's too many more years of NR! 🍻

[seabass]

[jservedio]

Happy 20th Birthday Nano Reef and thank you @Christopher Marks for making it happen! So glad that nano-reef has been around for so long and I hope it can make it for another 20 years!

[natalia_la_loca]

yaaay, happy birthday nano-reef ❤️❤️❤️ Love this forum!

[Jim_i]

20 years already!?  Dang!  Here's to hoping that this place will still be here for years to come.  🍺

[jtwisconsin]

I started lurking on this site back in 2010 before starting my first nano reef in 2013 - a little 5 gallon Spec V.  After being out of the hobby for 3 years, I am planning to get my 5th nano reef up and running this weekend.  This site has been a huge inspiration and help to me along the way - congrats on the anniversary and thanks again for creating this great site!   

[Aqua Splendor]

Happy anniversary!!
This forum have a place in my hearth, I always enjoyed seeing what people created. There's some aquarium that really inspired me on the website, which I still consider some of the best I've seen.
Always enjoyed the forum style also, simple, convenient, love it. I remember it took me 2 years before making an account many years back. (with another account) 

I truly believe in nano reefing, it's much easier to create compare to big and easy to fix with water change!
I wish another 20years of prosperity and keep this awesome community 🙂

[mitten_reef]

Happy B-day NR.  two decades down, many more to go! 

[sublunary]

Thank you Christopher Marks!  I joined in 2008 because not only did I want a small tank, but this was the nicest and most friendly forum I found.  I learned so much, and it's still my go-to site for information, even with a bigger tank now.  You've built such a wonderful community here. 

[StevieT]

Coincidence?  I think not

 

 

 

also

 

  good job CM keeping this joint around the interwebs for 20 years and providing a resource for well over 100,000 hobbyists, hundreds of businesses and a few trolls.

 

Hopefully our paths will cross again soon.  Can you say MACNA 2022 ?!

 

[Lypto]

A huge thanks to @Christopher Marks for assembling this amazing group of people and knowledge and keeping it running, it's been an invaluable living source of fantastic tips, tricks, basics and fantastic builds that's kept me in the hobby. From jellyfish to pipefish and macros to balancing calc and magnesium, this site is great and It's my favorite forum for all kinds of reefing knowledge.

From years of searches and reading thousands of build journals and guides, I'm glad to have nano reef as a community to learn from.