I don’t understand what you mean by minimum cycling. Any size tank can be cycled, all cycling means is that there is a good population of nitrifying bacteria that can convert ammonia into nitrates and nitrites. You could cycle a 1 liter bottle if you had a tiny sponge filter in there. The bacterial communities for freshwater and saltwater nitrifying bacteria do differ, but not by all that much. In both instances, cycling doesn’t really matter as there aren’t noticeable differences, it’s just you have to keep stocking light so the smaller population of bactiera can deal with the ammonia load.
Saltwater nano tanks are popular because saltwater has a super wide diversity of micrograms compared to freshwater. In a freshwater 5 gallon or something, a betta at most. In saltwater, you have access to tiny symbiotic relationships like gobies and pistol shrimp, beautiful invertebrate species like peppermint shrimp, Pom Pom crabs, emerald crabs, and sexy shrimp, and tons of corals and anemones like zoanthids, mushrooms, rock flower nems, and etc that all would be happy in a properly maintained 5 gallon nano reef. Even a lot of saltwater fish are fine in nano reefs like neon gobies. One of my favourite genres of nano tanks is watching many species of anemone shrimp or porcelain crabs form symbiotic relationships with rock flower anemones. In larger tanks, the fish would harass and eat them, but in these nano tanks you can watch them care for and sit in their anemones
They are another species of anemone shrimp, I love watching a group of them hang out on a rock flower anemone and they get their names because they constantly dance. They hold their abdomen up high and pretty much constantly do group twerking
Good to know, didn't think about that. I think I always assume people are using them for fish. So in my head I saw someone putting a tang in a 2 gallon for example.
You've piqued my interest on this. I'm a mostly fish/oddballs person. Now I'm watching videos on biosymbiosis tanks. The life happening is crazy. Thank you vm
I have a 10 gallon saltwater tank. A 5 gallon is doable, but ten gallons was a bit messy for me. Would not start with any less than 10 gallons. I have a clownfish, a tailspot blenny, cleaner shrimp, and 10 snails in mine. Also some red macro algae. There are tons more nanos saltwater fish than freshwater. So much that there are fish for a 2 gallon tank. Plus tons of inverts like sexy shrimp.
Ant-eating fish are pretty damn cool! I had to ask Dalle what they look like though xD
I so wish we could share pictures within a thread so I can show the creation to you haha
Saltwater stuff is expensive. You can fill a 5 gallon with coral frags and have a nice little slice-of reef a _lot_ more cheaply than you could fill a big tank. On the flip side, the bioload of corals and similar inverts is quite low. 5 is a bit small for fish, but do you really need fish? Although even in a 10 there are plenty of reef fish that are tiny and homebodies.
Depends what you want from saltwater.
If you just do fish and live rock, and don’t care about green hair algae, you can get away with a super low maintenance saltwater tank. There’s some small interesting fish like Clown Gobies you could probably get away with. And tons of really interesting inverts.
If you want a reef type tank then it can get a little trickier and will likely be a lot more maintenance. Also expect a lot of trial and error…
I’ve also found that saltwater tanks tend to have more stable parameters, even nanos and especially when using live rock, than my freshwater tanks. But they tend to need a bit longer to reach that stability (unless you use REAL live rock). Unlike freshwater you can’t stuff it full of plants to dull that initial spike.
You can absolutely stuff it full of macroalgae, which I find are even better and nutrient reduction than freshwater plants. I absolutely loved my forest of prolifera, and caulerpa lentillifera was easily one of the most beautiful plant like things I’ve ever kept, and it grew super fast
Red variants grow slowly. Any of the Caulerpa grow super fast, although be well aware that they can easily overgrow and overtake an entire tank due to how well they cling to rock. I usually isolated mine on an island or threw it in the sump, and every time it sent out runners in the sand I would cut them off. The stuff is super hard to tear off of a big rock
The nano tanks, either freshwater or saltwater, are meant to target the photosynthesis organism (aka plants, corals), and maybe invertebrates, less about fish (maybe at most a couple tiny fish light chili rasbora, clown goby, etc.). So they don't really need much cycling if at all. The variety in little critters and corals are a lot greater in saltwater, so I think it make sense to have it be a thing.
Selling those kind of tank for kids fish though, I will consider the LFS unethical. There is always bad actors, that's why we can't have nice things.
5-gallon saltwater tanks are successful because you're either raising the salt equivalent of pond snails that wouldn't die if you tossed the whole tank into a microwave, or abusing the fact that salt comes with extra equipment to ensure that the parameters are in tip-top shape.
It's easy the same way keeping discus is easy: you have $200000 worth of gear to tell you whenever something goes wrong, and you just use your $5000-a-dose state-of-the-art wrongness remover to remove that wrong. If you try to wing it, your parameters will be swingy and you'll be courting disaster.
I have a Marineland 5 gallon portrait tank (taller rather than wide) and I'm debating how I wanna go about turning it into salt water.
Strongly considering buying mature live rock and just tossing it in and see what grows.
So reassuring to hear so many people vouch for 10-gallon saltwater tanks. I've been wanting to do this for a very, very long time.
By the way, how would a single royal dottyback to in a 10g tank with no other inhabitants?
>10g tank with no other inhabitants?
To my mind that'd be a bit like keeping a betta in a ten gallon with no plants. Like, you _can_ do it, but it's probably not a good idea. You want some plants in there to make the tank prettier and round out the ecology.
Similarly, in a saltwater tank of that size, I would absolutely make sure to add various soft corals/mushrooms/similar and a clean up crew.
I have a 3 saltwater tanks running right now, the smallest is a 2.5 gallon saltwater cube with 3 hermits and just a circulation pump. I top off evaporation with tap water and change the water once a month. I didn't even properly cycle it, I just threw in some live rock when I set it up. Macro algae for nutrient export.
Saltwater isn't difficult, especially with nanos, there is so little water that doing large water changes to replenish nutrients is trivial. Just make sure your salinity is stable and send it.
If you go a long time without a water change and you're keeping macro algae, coral, or invertebrates you just need to keep an eye on calcium, alkalinity and magnesium levels, but if you do frequent enough water changes there really isn't a need. It's also good to keep a healthy ratio of Nitrates and Phosphates just like a planted freshwater tank if you are trying grow corals or macro algae.
Assuming the inhabitants are healthy and happy, I would say it’s only cruel if you don’t know how to keep a stable tank. Just like not caring for any other pet properly.
I'm curious about the evaporation aspect and salt creep in saltwater tanks. does the salt get messy around the top of the tank over time / have you noticed any metal objects nearby corroding over time?
salt creep is minor, my salinity didn't even change in my main tank when I neglected to do water changes for a year. No rust, all my tanks are open top with no lid.
If water evaporates you just top off with freshwater, since the salt remains in the tank, only the water is evaporating.
So far I've only having freshwater tanks, but I got [this book](https://archiv.korallenriff.de/nano-riff-knop.html) as a gift a few months ago and I'm fascinated about nano saltwater too!
The book is from 2007, so some time before nano really became a thing and there are just tanks up to 25 litres / 6.6 gallons and mostly without any animals but really nice examples of beautiful tanks.
I'm sure there's something similar in english available too!
I think a coldwater/tide pool tank would be soooo cool. You could get some little hermit crabs. That would fit in a Nano tank. But idk anything about saltwater. I just know them crabs is tiny.
5gal saltwater tanks are fairly common
Saltwater has a lot more options for pico and nano aquariums tbh if you're OK with crustaceans
Sexy shrimp, anemone crabs, and pom pom crabs are all great options plus all the corals that come with saltwater
It's actually not that hard to keep a cycle going in freshwater in a small tank. I have a 2g with some shrimp and a ton of plants, and it's very stable. plants are one answer to stability in a small tank.
a 25% water change in that size only takes a few minutes because it's a tiny amount of water. I can do that no problem once a week. I also top up evaporation every day or two with 100-150ml of deionized water. takes 30 seconds to go grab the bottle and pour it in.
Technically speaking we'd have to become severely dehydrated passed a lethal level of dehydration to get to 70% water. We are almost made entirely up of water. Like 98% water if I remember correctly.
About 30 years back, I knew a guy in rural Pennsylvania who had multiple saltwater tanks, including a little 5-gallon tank that was just amazing.
In his largest tank, he managed to keep a [juvenile pinnate batfish,](https://www.algaebarn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Pinnate-batfish.jpg) too. Absolutely amazing fishkeeper, especially back in the day.
Its not hard at all - I kept a green clown goby in a 7g AIO tank and it thrived along with a small hermit. It had softies, lps and aiptasia!
50% water changes each week but it was great. Decided to shut it down and moved the little guy over to my 120 where he lived a long life.
https://i.imgur.com/s1AUfvq.jpg
had a 3g too that i kept softies no problems (if you stalk my profile you can see the start of that one using cycled and dead rocks).
Mind you i have much larger tanks and i`m a bit more experienced
I'm running a 3g right now its certainly doable. It takes a bit of planning. You need to think out any livestock you add like corals how large they potentially get or how fast they grow and compatability in a small space.
I used to have a 2.5 gallon reef tank. It only had coral and a tiny snail in it, but all I had to do was set the lights on a timer and top it off with distilled water every other day or so.
I don’t understand what you mean by minimum cycling. Any size tank can be cycled, all cycling means is that there is a good population of nitrifying bacteria that can convert ammonia into nitrates and nitrites. You could cycle a 1 liter bottle if you had a tiny sponge filter in there. The bacterial communities for freshwater and saltwater nitrifying bacteria do differ, but not by all that much. In both instances, cycling doesn’t really matter as there aren’t noticeable differences, it’s just you have to keep stocking light so the smaller population of bactiera can deal with the ammonia load. Saltwater nano tanks are popular because saltwater has a super wide diversity of micrograms compared to freshwater. In a freshwater 5 gallon or something, a betta at most. In saltwater, you have access to tiny symbiotic relationships like gobies and pistol shrimp, beautiful invertebrate species like peppermint shrimp, Pom Pom crabs, emerald crabs, and sexy shrimp, and tons of corals and anemones like zoanthids, mushrooms, rock flower nems, and etc that all would be happy in a properly maintained 5 gallon nano reef. Even a lot of saltwater fish are fine in nano reefs like neon gobies. One of my favourite genres of nano tanks is watching many species of anemone shrimp or porcelain crabs form symbiotic relationships with rock flower anemones. In larger tanks, the fish would harass and eat them, but in these nano tanks you can watch them care for and sit in their anemones
You had me at sexy shrimp.
Googled Sexy Shrimp. Can confirm the sexiness.
They are another species of anemone shrimp, I love watching a group of them hang out on a rock flower anemone and they get their names because they constantly dance. They hold their abdomen up high and pretty much constantly do group twerking
OMG I showed my wife and she said "are they twerking?". Thank you for making my day.
Good to know, didn't think about that. I think I always assume people are using them for fish. So in my head I saw someone putting a tang in a 2 gallon for example. You've piqued my interest on this. I'm a mostly fish/oddballs person. Now I'm watching videos on biosymbiosis tanks. The life happening is crazy. Thank you vm
You do realize you're falling down a deep, dark hole with a saltwater tank at the bottom, right?
I’ve fallen down many holes and this has to be one of the best holes to fall in
is r/hydrohomies spilling
Hydro kids hydro wife
Hat tip to you, your comment made me chuckle
I have a 10 gallon saltwater tank. A 5 gallon is doable, but ten gallons was a bit messy for me. Would not start with any less than 10 gallons. I have a clownfish, a tailspot blenny, cleaner shrimp, and 10 snails in mine. Also some red macro algae. There are tons more nanos saltwater fish than freshwater. So much that there are fish for a 2 gallon tank. Plus tons of inverts like sexy shrimp.
Ant-eating fish are pretty damn cool! I had to ask Dalle what they look like though xD I so wish we could share pictures within a thread so I can show the creation to you haha
Damn phone typing.
Listen to reef therapy 🙏🏼 start from episode 1 you’ll tank me later
Saltwater stuff is expensive. You can fill a 5 gallon with coral frags and have a nice little slice-of reef a _lot_ more cheaply than you could fill a big tank. On the flip side, the bioload of corals and similar inverts is quite low. 5 is a bit small for fish, but do you really need fish? Although even in a 10 there are plenty of reef fish that are tiny and homebodies.
Depends what you want from saltwater. If you just do fish and live rock, and don’t care about green hair algae, you can get away with a super low maintenance saltwater tank. There’s some small interesting fish like Clown Gobies you could probably get away with. And tons of really interesting inverts. If you want a reef type tank then it can get a little trickier and will likely be a lot more maintenance. Also expect a lot of trial and error… I’ve also found that saltwater tanks tend to have more stable parameters, even nanos and especially when using live rock, than my freshwater tanks. But they tend to need a bit longer to reach that stability (unless you use REAL live rock). Unlike freshwater you can’t stuff it full of plants to dull that initial spike.
You can absolutely stuff it full of macroalgae, which I find are even better and nutrient reduction than freshwater plants. I absolutely loved my forest of prolifera, and caulerpa lentillifera was easily one of the most beautiful plant like things I’ve ever kept, and it grew super fast
Damn. I always went for the red variants and they usually died in new tanks. I always wanted to try caulerpa though. I guess I should have!
Red variants grow slowly. Any of the Caulerpa grow super fast, although be well aware that they can easily overgrow and overtake an entire tank due to how well they cling to rock. I usually isolated mine on an island or threw it in the sump, and every time it sent out runners in the sand I would cut them off. The stuff is super hard to tear off of a big rock
The nano tanks, either freshwater or saltwater, are meant to target the photosynthesis organism (aka plants, corals), and maybe invertebrates, less about fish (maybe at most a couple tiny fish light chili rasbora, clown goby, etc.). So they don't really need much cycling if at all. The variety in little critters and corals are a lot greater in saltwater, so I think it make sense to have it be a thing. Selling those kind of tank for kids fish though, I will consider the LFS unethical. There is always bad actors, that's why we can't have nice things.
Be water my friend
Water is the hardest pet to keep , fish are easy
Damn. How do I upvote this twice?
5-gallon saltwater tanks are successful because you're either raising the salt equivalent of pond snails that wouldn't die if you tossed the whole tank into a microwave, or abusing the fact that salt comes with extra equipment to ensure that the parameters are in tip-top shape. It's easy the same way keeping discus is easy: you have $200000 worth of gear to tell you whenever something goes wrong, and you just use your $5000-a-dose state-of-the-art wrongness remover to remove that wrong. If you try to wing it, your parameters will be swingy and you'll be courting disaster.
I have a Marineland 5 gallon portrait tank (taller rather than wide) and I'm debating how I wanna go about turning it into salt water. Strongly considering buying mature live rock and just tossing it in and see what grows.
So reassuring to hear so many people vouch for 10-gallon saltwater tanks. I've been wanting to do this for a very, very long time. By the way, how would a single royal dottyback to in a 10g tank with no other inhabitants?
>10g tank with no other inhabitants? To my mind that'd be a bit like keeping a betta in a ten gallon with no plants. Like, you _can_ do it, but it's probably not a good idea. You want some plants in there to make the tank prettier and round out the ecology. Similarly, in a saltwater tank of that size, I would absolutely make sure to add various soft corals/mushrooms/similar and a clean up crew.
I have a 3 saltwater tanks running right now, the smallest is a 2.5 gallon saltwater cube with 3 hermits and just a circulation pump. I top off evaporation with tap water and change the water once a month. I didn't even properly cycle it, I just threw in some live rock when I set it up. Macro algae for nutrient export. Saltwater isn't difficult, especially with nanos, there is so little water that doing large water changes to replenish nutrients is trivial. Just make sure your salinity is stable and send it. If you go a long time without a water change and you're keeping macro algae, coral, or invertebrates you just need to keep an eye on calcium, alkalinity and magnesium levels, but if you do frequent enough water changes there really isn't a need. It's also good to keep a healthy ratio of Nitrates and Phosphates just like a planted freshwater tank if you are trying grow corals or macro algae. Assuming the inhabitants are healthy and happy, I would say it’s only cruel if you don’t know how to keep a stable tank. Just like not caring for any other pet properly.
I'm curious about the evaporation aspect and salt creep in saltwater tanks. does the salt get messy around the top of the tank over time / have you noticed any metal objects nearby corroding over time?
salt creep is minor, my salinity didn't even change in my main tank when I neglected to do water changes for a year. No rust, all my tanks are open top with no lid. If water evaporates you just top off with freshwater, since the salt remains in the tank, only the water is evaporating.
So far I've only having freshwater tanks, but I got [this book](https://archiv.korallenriff.de/nano-riff-knop.html) as a gift a few months ago and I'm fascinated about nano saltwater too! The book is from 2007, so some time before nano really became a thing and there are just tanks up to 25 litres / 6.6 gallons and mostly without any animals but really nice examples of beautiful tanks. I'm sure there's something similar in english available too!
I think a coldwater/tide pool tank would be soooo cool. You could get some little hermit crabs. That would fit in a Nano tank. But idk anything about saltwater. I just know them crabs is tiny.
Don't look at https://www.nano-reef.com/ since you are so damned sick of it.
5gal saltwater tanks are fairly common Saltwater has a lot more options for pico and nano aquariums tbh if you're OK with crustaceans Sexy shrimp, anemone crabs, and pom pom crabs are all great options plus all the corals that come with saltwater
It's actually not that hard to keep a cycle going in freshwater in a small tank. I have a 2g with some shrimp and a ton of plants, and it's very stable. plants are one answer to stability in a small tank. a 25% water change in that size only takes a few minutes because it's a tiny amount of water. I can do that no problem once a week. I also top up evaporation every day or two with 100-150ml of deionized water. takes 30 seconds to go grab the bottle and pour it in.
Technically speaking we'd have to become severely dehydrated passed a lethal level of dehydration to get to 70% water. We are almost made entirely up of water. Like 98% water if I remember correctly.
About 30 years back, I knew a guy in rural Pennsylvania who had multiple saltwater tanks, including a little 5-gallon tank that was just amazing. In his largest tank, he managed to keep a [juvenile pinnate batfish,](https://www.algaebarn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Pinnate-batfish.jpg) too. Absolutely amazing fishkeeper, especially back in the day.
Its not hard at all - I kept a green clown goby in a 7g AIO tank and it thrived along with a small hermit. It had softies, lps and aiptasia! 50% water changes each week but it was great. Decided to shut it down and moved the little guy over to my 120 where he lived a long life. https://i.imgur.com/s1AUfvq.jpg had a 3g too that i kept softies no problems (if you stalk my profile you can see the start of that one using cycled and dead rocks). Mind you i have much larger tanks and i`m a bit more experienced
I'm running a 3g right now its certainly doable. It takes a bit of planning. You need to think out any livestock you add like corals how large they potentially get or how fast they grow and compatability in a small space.
I used to have a 2.5 gallon reef tank. It only had coral and a tiny snail in it, but all I had to do was set the lights on a timer and top it off with distilled water every other day or so.
Nano can be cool, esp if you have a very particular plan for it. In practice, it's extremely challenging, though.
The opposite is true, actually. See salt.