It’s never been easier to set up a reef tank and this is precisely what we set out to demonstrate in our recent build of starter nano reef tank. In less than 24 hours we took a Red Sea Max Nano from completely empty, to full of sand, rock, seawater, corals and a few fish, tossing many conventions about reef keeping to the wind.
As we’ve seen at countless reef aquarium shows it’s very possible to set up just about any kind of aquarium display and have it look great for a few days but how would our nano reef tank turn out after a month or two? We’re happy to report that with zero additional work or intervention this nano reef is looking very respectable considering it’s had no maintenance besides light feeding and make up water.
The tank is just over 60 days old and we are grateful that it’s been very smooth running this aquarium, although it’s just getting to the point where a small degree of maintenance will go a long way. A 50% water change with good seawater will be much faster, easier, and cheaper than trying to test and dose to adjust chemistry, and a few minor pests like Valonia and Aiptasia are ready to be dealt with and managed.
We’ll remove or kill the bubble algae and anemone manually and soon after add a couple peppermint shrimp and emerald crabs for long term natural control. As soon as we document the first round of regular maintenance of this tank we’ll be sure to start adding some new corals and moving a few of the initial ones to better placement.
Besides covering all the reef aquarium fundamentals what has really helped this tank to thrive right off the bat hinges on the very, Very light feeding of the fish and greatly reduced lighting intensity and photoperiod of the lights. This is the first update on our five part series on how to set up a basic nano reef aquarium but it won’t be the last, so be sure and subscribe so you don’t miss a video on this nano reef, or many of our other setups at the Reef Builders Studio.
