Konigstiger
New Member
TL;DR: yes, a smaller tank requires more oversight and closer monitoring than a bigger tank does. But that does not mean that it requires more effort than a larger tank does. In fact, it's the opposite.
I am by no means an expert on reef tanks, but as of now, it has been about a year since I set up my ~50 gallon tank, and although it has experienced several issues, I have been able to keep your average beginner/intermediate fish and coral with moderate success. I remember doing research back when I was a beginner and basically every guide said 'the bigger the better' to start out with, but after one year, I've come to the conclusion that the vast majority of the problems I have had with reef keeping has been due to the larger size of the tank and the hassle associated with that, and my tank wasn't even that big. My reasoning for this basically comes down to one thing: effort (and cost but that's obvious).
Firstly, a bigger tank is just much harder to set up and requires more space in your house, and this becomes even worse if your tank comes with a sump and a stand (the latter of which is absolutely necessary with bigger tanks). For a big tank or even just a tank of the size I had, you will need copious amounts of time and the help of multiple people for just the set up alone. As a complete beginner, I had zero clue on how to set up a sump, and my tank came with barely any instructions. This was the largest hurdle to setting up my tank, and I struggled with figuring out how to make everything work while minimizing noise and leakage until I finally got it to run smoothly. On top of that, I also had to build the stand, which was less vexing than the sump, but was still annoying and took the better part of a day even with the help of multiple other people. You also need other people to even help you move all this heavy equipment around the house. Furthermore, there is the aspect of filling the tank with saltwater. For bigger tanks, you will almost certainly need to set up your own RODI system and reservoir for mixing and storing clean saltwater, which is an entire process in and of itself. I opted to not do this and to just buy saltwater, which again is still fairly labor-intensive as now you're lugging 50 gallons of saltwater to the tank in order to fill it up, but it was still less effort than making my own saltwater.
Now compare this to a 5 or 10 gallon that you can just pick up yourself and set on a piece of furniture. Buy a couple boxes of saltwater and that's it; you're done. No hassle and no one else needed but you.
And that's not even getting into maintenance... With a big tank, a water change becomes a big undertaking, requiring the use of one or more big buckets, a siphon, and more saltwater that you have to transport to your tank again either from your reservoir that you made or from the store. You will need to dedicate a decent chunk of time to this, and you will probably get yourself and the entire surrounding area of the tank wet with dirty water. The hassle associated with doing a water change just made me not want to do it at all, and this probably led to a lot of the problems I experienced since I was doing way fewer water changes than I should have been. Other aspects of maintenance are just as bad. Need to clean the rocks or sand or glass? You will have much more to clean in a bigger tank. Need to replace the evaporated water? Even in a tank with an ATO like mine has, I was still manually replacing like a gallon of distilled freshwater every day because of how little water the ATO reservoir held, which became incredibly annoying over time.
Compare this to the maintenance on a smaller tank: just put an empty gallon carton in there and fill it up and throw out the water, then replace with another gallon of saltwater and your 10-20% water change is done instantly.
And the cost aspect of all of this speaks for itself. Everything you will need for a bigger tank will be bigger, and therefore more expensive than the items required for a smaller tank. Given how much equipment you need to merely start a reef tank, this adds up. Even if you completely fail on your small tank and have to start over, replacing all the livestock and water even multiple times in a small tank is still probably less expensive than just simply maintaining a healthy bigger tank.
In conclusion, I will agree that logically, smaller tanks will require more maintenance and more closer monitoring of parameters, but I would say that doing this extra maintenance on a small tank is less work than just doing your standard or even below-standard maintenance on a big tank. Most beginners are not willing to put in immense amounts of money, time, and manual labor into maintaining a big tank. Instead, they should start on a small tank and really get good at understanding parameters and water chemistry before upgrading to a bigger tank. And if you mess up on your small tank, it will be no big deal; your wallet will take less of a hit, and the number of fish you harm or kill will also be fewer than you would have had you messed up on a big tank.
As I said in the title, I'm sure this is a rather unpopular view, and it's just my opinion in the end. But I am curious if there are other likeminded people out there who believe smaller tanks are actually better choices for beginners. Or, if you still believe bigger is better for beginners, feel free to share your counterpoints. I know that personally, if I ever start another reef tank or even a freshwater tank, I'm going 10 gallons or smaller.
I am by no means an expert on reef tanks, but as of now, it has been about a year since I set up my ~50 gallon tank, and although it has experienced several issues, I have been able to keep your average beginner/intermediate fish and coral with moderate success. I remember doing research back when I was a beginner and basically every guide said 'the bigger the better' to start out with, but after one year, I've come to the conclusion that the vast majority of the problems I have had with reef keeping has been due to the larger size of the tank and the hassle associated with that, and my tank wasn't even that big. My reasoning for this basically comes down to one thing: effort (and cost but that's obvious).
Firstly, a bigger tank is just much harder to set up and requires more space in your house, and this becomes even worse if your tank comes with a sump and a stand (the latter of which is absolutely necessary with bigger tanks). For a big tank or even just a tank of the size I had, you will need copious amounts of time and the help of multiple people for just the set up alone. As a complete beginner, I had zero clue on how to set up a sump, and my tank came with barely any instructions. This was the largest hurdle to setting up my tank, and I struggled with figuring out how to make everything work while minimizing noise and leakage until I finally got it to run smoothly. On top of that, I also had to build the stand, which was less vexing than the sump, but was still annoying and took the better part of a day even with the help of multiple other people. You also need other people to even help you move all this heavy equipment around the house. Furthermore, there is the aspect of filling the tank with saltwater. For bigger tanks, you will almost certainly need to set up your own RODI system and reservoir for mixing and storing clean saltwater, which is an entire process in and of itself. I opted to not do this and to just buy saltwater, which again is still fairly labor-intensive as now you're lugging 50 gallons of saltwater to the tank in order to fill it up, but it was still less effort than making my own saltwater.
Now compare this to a 5 or 10 gallon that you can just pick up yourself and set on a piece of furniture. Buy a couple boxes of saltwater and that's it; you're done. No hassle and no one else needed but you.
And that's not even getting into maintenance... With a big tank, a water change becomes a big undertaking, requiring the use of one or more big buckets, a siphon, and more saltwater that you have to transport to your tank again either from your reservoir that you made or from the store. You will need to dedicate a decent chunk of time to this, and you will probably get yourself and the entire surrounding area of the tank wet with dirty water. The hassle associated with doing a water change just made me not want to do it at all, and this probably led to a lot of the problems I experienced since I was doing way fewer water changes than I should have been. Other aspects of maintenance are just as bad. Need to clean the rocks or sand or glass? You will have much more to clean in a bigger tank. Need to replace the evaporated water? Even in a tank with an ATO like mine has, I was still manually replacing like a gallon of distilled freshwater every day because of how little water the ATO reservoir held, which became incredibly annoying over time.
Compare this to the maintenance on a smaller tank: just put an empty gallon carton in there and fill it up and throw out the water, then replace with another gallon of saltwater and your 10-20% water change is done instantly.
And the cost aspect of all of this speaks for itself. Everything you will need for a bigger tank will be bigger, and therefore more expensive than the items required for a smaller tank. Given how much equipment you need to merely start a reef tank, this adds up. Even if you completely fail on your small tank and have to start over, replacing all the livestock and water even multiple times in a small tank is still probably less expensive than just simply maintaining a healthy bigger tank.
In conclusion, I will agree that logically, smaller tanks will require more maintenance and more closer monitoring of parameters, but I would say that doing this extra maintenance on a small tank is less work than just doing your standard or even below-standard maintenance on a big tank. Most beginners are not willing to put in immense amounts of money, time, and manual labor into maintaining a big tank. Instead, they should start on a small tank and really get good at understanding parameters and water chemistry before upgrading to a bigger tank. And if you mess up on your small tank, it will be no big deal; your wallet will take less of a hit, and the number of fish you harm or kill will also be fewer than you would have had you messed up on a big tank.
As I said in the title, I'm sure this is a rather unpopular view, and it's just my opinion in the end. But I am curious if there are other likeminded people out there who believe smaller tanks are actually better choices for beginners. Or, if you still believe bigger is better for beginners, feel free to share your counterpoints. I know that personally, if I ever start another reef tank or even a freshwater tank, I'm going 10 gallons or smaller.
