Nano tank

[Anthony]

Can you give me any pointers on making a nano reef out of a 5 gallon. I have a Penguin 125 Bio Wheel, and a 20 watt Spiral cf. What else do I need. What about making it "SALT" water. I have never kept anything saltwater before.

[OrionGirl]

For a first time SW tank, I encourage people to go with a minimum of a 30. Smaller tanks are very tough to maintain and keep stable, much less stock. Unlike FW, where the inclination is to start small and go bigger, with SW, most go the opposite rate--keep a bigger tank up and running and healthy for 6-12 months, then consider setting up a nano.

Otherwise--you won't want the Penguin. Best filtration will be 15-20 pounds of live rock and 1-2 inches of sand, a protien skimmer, and auto-topoff system, and frequent water changes. A small bio-laod--I wouldn't go with a fish, but there would be a few inverts that would work, and some tough corals. Cycling and such are similar to larger setups, with more emphasis on using RO water, to avoid introducing unwanted minerals and such. There are several brands of marine mix--Instant Ocean is popular, but there are a few 'higher' grade salts that might give better results in a small setup.

[Anthony]

I was thinking of keeping 1 or 2 small fish and maybe some peppermint shrimp. Are you saying that my filter is useless for this tank. I already had in mind the Carib-Sea Argonite sand and live rock. Could an urchin live in there. Would the 20 watt 6500k cf be enough light for a hard coral.

[OrionGirl]

Pretty much, yes--live rock and sand, along with cleaners, is the best filtration you can get. The bio-wheel is definitely out--they increase evaporation and salt creep--big pain to keep functioning and clean.

I would not go with 2 fish. Maybe one, but not 2. 5 gallons is tiny! I wouldn't put an urchin in--in such a small tank, you'd be adding a bulldozer that would wipe out all coralline algae in a few weeks, without enough space to allow it to grow back.

20 W would be okay for some stony corals, but I would bump it to a 50/50 to increase the actinic and K.

[Max]

Hey, if you do add a fish make sure it's tiny and stays tiny. I agree with O.G. on this one it's a lot easier to have a larger tank. Also it wil be hard to resist buying fish or critters and a lot of folks really overstock their nano tanks. It's not hard to do either. I start out with a bigger and then do the nano fwiw they can end up being real works of art. The thing is if anything goes wrong it can be really hard to fix.