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Today on BRStv we are going to start a highly requested series for newer reefers just starting
the hobby who want to spend a reasonable amount of time and money setting the tank up. In
this first episode we are going to set up a smaller sized, affordable and most importantly,
easy to take care of tank. Hi I'm Ryan host of BRSTV where each week
we cover a new topic related to reefing. This week inside of six minutes we are going to
set up a new tank for less than $500 bucks in gear, we will have it set up in less than
a couple hours and show you a maintenance schedule that takes less than 30 minutes a
couple times a month. The kit we put together includes a 16 gallon
Nuvo Aquarium. These tanks are super easy to set up, attractive and can be put basically
anywhere. In fact this package also doubles as an excellent way to bring your hobby to
the office. The kit includes a heater, sand, rock, salt
mix, a tool to measure salt, fish food, glass cleaner and a bottle of bacteria to get the
filtration started. First step is to find a nice spot for the tank which is level and
can hold a couple hundred pounds. Like a countertop, sturdy cabinet, table. Keep in mind whatever
you put it on is likely to get wet occasionally. It is recommended to not place the tank in
a spot where it will sit in direct sunlight. Next add your rock. Try and stack it in a
way that keeps the rock a few inches from the sides and top as well as stable. Pour
in the sand and spread it around the base of the rock.
So we added 15 gallons of water to this Brute trash can. It's probably the most popular
type of mixing container. Mixing the water is super easy. Just add the salt to the water
and look through this tool called a refractometer to measure the salinity. The scale inside
measures salt in parts per thousand or specific gravity. More or less just dissolve the salt,
add a few drops of water to the lens, close, wait 20 seconds or so and look through the
eye piece. It should read 35 parts per thousand or 1.026. Fifteen gallons of water should
take around seven or so cups of salt. The standard version of crystal seas marine mix
contains a dechlorinator so you don't need to be concerned about the chlorine in your
tap water if you are using the standard mix. While you are waiting for the salt to dissolve,
take a moment to check all the tubing connections on the pump and get familiar with the back
of the tank. This area in the back is used to house equipment like pumps, filters and
heaters where they are out of the way. Go ahead and mount the heater in one of the
chambers on the left or right fairly low so it will stay submerged at all times. Once
you have everything situated pour in your mixed saltwater and plug everything in. Since
we are dealing with water the ideal outlet has a GFI like one you would find in your
bathroom or kitchen or a powerstrip with a GFI built in.
At minimum make sure you arrange the cords in a way that will cause drips to fall of
safely rather than travel down the cord to the outlet which is called a drip loop. Pretty
much every electrical item in the tank will show a quick diagram on how they suggest to
do it properly in the instructions. Now that water is circulating we just set
the water to 78 degrees by tapping the button and replace. Install our lights and the tank
is set up. This literally took us less than an hour to do from start to finish. All we
need to do now is build up the beneficial bacteria to build up and start filtering our
tank. You probably noticed we don't have an actual
filter on the tank like you might expect. That's because the filtration is primarily
done on the surface of the rock and sand where beneficial bacteria populate and process excess
food and fish waste for you. Really don't have to do anything special to maintain this
type of filtration, in fact there really isn't much you could do in a normal reef tank to
prevent this bacteria from populating and filtering your tank for you, really it's that
easy. While the bacteria would populate on its own
over time, new tank owners typically aren't that patient and there are a couple of things
we can do to speed the process up in the tank. First we used live sand which contains live
dormant bacteria, in this case we used the Ocean Direct brand which contains natural
bacteria found in the sea. At this point it is wise to let the tank rest
overnight and heat up. In the morning add your Bio-Spira and the tank is ready for your
first fish. The Bio-Spira and live sand will provide the filtration needed to protect your
fish but it is always wise to start with something pretty hardy like a clownfish as your first
addition. After that give your tank a month stabilize
with the lights off before adding anything new. Keeping the lights off will help reduce
algae growth common with new tanks. As a general rule of thumb I find it is wise to never more
than double your fish load in a single month meaning next month add another fish and possibly
two the month after. Some of my favorite new *** fish selections
for a tank like this is standard clownfish, purple or red fire fish, shrimp and goby pairs,
lawn mower or midas blennys or an orchid dotty back.
Once the tank is stabilized around your fish population,you can add some interesting elements
like snails, crabs and shrimp. Nassarious and astria snails are popular as well as small
hermits, emerald crabs, cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimp and pistol shrimp.
After that some easy to keep corals as well. The lights that come with the kit are strong
enough to keep some low light corals, as a beginner is also wise to select some that
don't require much effort like soft or even some LPS corals. Zoanthids, mushrooms, recordia
, polyps, candy canes, duncans, torch and frog spawn.
Now that the tank is set up there is a couple ongoing maintenance steps to keep the tank
healthy. First is feeding the fish. These little buggers always look hungry but don't
let them fool you. Easy to keep fish like the ones I just mentioned only need to eat
once a day at the most, many people even feed less. When you do feed them they only need
a few pellets each which is just a tiny pinch. This is a pretty critical point on a small
tank like this. Keep in mind that while fish do need food, the primary thing that pollutes
the tank is food and it does promotes algae growth.
You will also need to top the tank off with freshwater every couple days. Keep in mind
that while water will evaporate the salt doesn't leave the tank so topping off the tank with
new water to compensate for evaporation should always be done with fresh water not saltwater.
We recommend picking up a few jugs of reverse osmosis or distilled water from your local
grocery store for this purpose. Less frequently, you will need to clean the
glass , you can use the JBJ cleaner included with the kit. You will also need to change
the water regularly in a small system like this meaning every other week. Water changes
are the primary method of removing broken down food and other elements which can pollute
the tank over time. Water changes will also be a new ***'s primary method of replacing
elements consumed by the corals in the tank. I like to do twenty to thirty percent water
changes which are super easy and shouldn't take more than a few minutes. First thing
is you will want to use the small heater and pump from the package to mix and heat the
saltwater before doing the change. I find it easiest to take a minute or so to do this
the night before I do my water change but it could be done a few hours in advance as
well. For a tank this size I would probably do close
to five gallon water change. All you do is remove the water from the tank and then replace
with your heated freshly mixed saltwater. There are a hundred ways to maintain a successful
reef tank but I can tell you something for absolute sure, if you are careful about the
amount of food you put in the tank and good about your water changes you are almost certainly
going to have a lot of success and enjoy the hobby.
In future episodes we will explore some upgrade kits most reefers would be interested in as
their tank evolves and interest in the hobby grows. This video was intentionally pretty
high level and provides the elements you absolutely need to know to be successful. If you have
the desire to understand all this at a deeper level we literally have hundreds of other
reefing videos most of which cover a vast majority of topics related to reefing. Really
anything you could want to know in a pretty in-depth format. If this your first time with
us hit that subscribe button because we do this every week. See you all next week with
another episode of BRStv.