Salty Q&A: Is a Bigger Tank Always Better for Beginners?

[Reef Builders]

Q: I’m setting up my first saltwater aquarium, and one piece of advice I keep hearing is that “bigger is better” when it comes to the size of the tank. I was planning to use a 40-gallon breeder, but now I’m having second thoughts. The trouble is, I have a limited budget and a relatively […]
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[Billldg]

I would have to say the your response is as close to a perfect answer as you could give someone.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

I feel like after a certain size you hit diminishing returns in regards to water stability vs maintenance cost(both $ and manpower). If I were starting again I'd go with the same size tank I started with, a standard 75g. It was big enough to allow for decent stocking choices, but not so massive that I got overwhelmed by water changes and equipment costs. The one piece of advice I'd tag to the size question every time is to go with a drilled tank and sump. I know the idea of sump plumbing/operation scared me with my first build, but if I had it to do all over again I definitely would have went that route instead of a canister. If the sump wasn't an option I would have got a DIY AIO kit for that tank..

*edit* Guess I shoulda read that whole response lol. Basically all of that was said

 

[Mkkari]

My personal experience and opinion.

The Bigger the better if money is not an issue:

Say if you started with 300g tank, you are in your cycle process and you overstocked your tank. Now you have high Ammonia or Nitrite. Your quick fix would be water change, if you want to remove 50% of the issue then it is 50% of water change, which is 150g.

That is definitely a lot of water, so my local fish store in AZ charges $1 for a gallon of saltwater or $.35 for gallon of RODI. Now 150 will cost you $150 or if you planning to mix your own salt that would be around $60 + Salt which would be usually around $60 to $80 (I would rather just get premixed saltwater at that point).

Moving 150g of water is not going to be easy from your local fish store to your house, unless you got a truck and and a huge reservoir.

So either you do all that OR just by a 5 stage or more RODI system at home, which will definitely cost you couple of hundreds.

Now if you had say a 40g tank, 50% water change would be 20g water, which would cost you $20.

Larger tank is also much forgiving, since the effects are not instant due to higher water volume.

Larger tank means more fish and more corals ( you can trade or sell your frags from your coral colonies to cover some expenses in your hobby).

So yeah! It totally depends on what route you want to take and what makes sense to you.